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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




The Cobra's Den 




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The Cobra's Den 



And Other Stories of 
Missionary Work among 
the Telugus of India 



/ 



BY 



Rev. Jacob Chamberlain, M. D., D. D. 

Forty years a Missionary of the Reformed Church in America, 
at Madanapalle, India 

Author of ''In the Tiger Jungle " 



" Hindus! Awake, or you are lost. Ho^y many thousands of thousands 
have these missionaries turned to Christianity! On how many more have 
they cast their nets! If we sleep as heretowre, in a short time they will 
turn all to Christianity, and our temples will be changed into churches. Let 
all the people join as one man to banish Christianity from our land." — From 
an Anti-Christian Tamil Tract. See p. 24. 




New York Chicago Toronto 

FPeming H. -Re veil Company 

Publishers of Evangelical Literature 



1 



TWO COPlts HECEIVEO, 

APR 2 1 )900 

««glt««r of CopyfighU 



Copyright, 1900 

by 

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 



57550 









^ 

K 



TO THAT 

IDEAL MISSIONARY SECRETARY 

REV. HENRY NITCHIE COBB, D.D. 

MY LIFELONG FRIEND 

AND BROTHER 



Preface 

The exceedingly kind reception given on both 
sides of the Atlantic, to " In the Tiger Jungle and 
Other Stories of Missionary Work among the 
Telugus" seems to indicate that such simple 
sketches of incidents in the life and work of any 
earnest, observant missionary have a place of 
some importance, in quickening the interest of 
both young people and older in all that pertains 
to the spread of the Kingdom, and that another 
collection of such sketches may not be out of 
place. Indeed, many urgent requests, from both 
friends and strangers, in Europe, Asia, and 
America, have been received, that at the earliest 
date another such collection should be issued. 
As these requests have come largely from ac- 
knowledged leaders in the church in the Home 
Lands, as well as from fellow-missionaries in 
different countries, and from Missionary Secre- 
taries of many Societies and Boards, the call can 
no longer be left unheeded. 

I have therefore made, and present herewith, 
another collection of sketches which have ap- 

7 



Preface 

peared in a wide variety of periodicals, in Great 
Britain, India and Australia, as well as in the 
United States, during the forty years of my mis- 
sionary life. They cover a wide range of sub- 
jects, grave and gay, and illustrate very different 
phases of missionary life and work. They were 
penned, mostly, when the incidents occurred, but 
no attempt has been made to place them in any 
chronological order. Still it is believed that, in 
the order of thought, one leads to another. Usu- 
ally each chapter is complete in itself, and the 
book may be opened at any point, and any sketch 
read independently without noticeable loss of 
connection. 

Testimonies, received from many unimpeach- 
able witnesses, of missionary interest quickened, 
or first aroused, and deeper consecration of per- 
son and purse produced by the perusal of the 
former volume, give stimulus to the hope and in- 
centive to the prayer that this little volume may 
be used of the Master only for the arousing of 
His people, the promotion of His cause, and the 
earlier establishment of His Kingdom in the Re- 
volted Lands of the Orient. 

Jacob Chamberlain. 

Madanapalle, India. 



Contents 

CHAP. PAGE 

Introductory . . . . 13 

I. The Cobra's Den . . . .19 

II. The Snake-Bitten Hindu's Story . 27 

III. The Angry Mob and the Story of the Cross 36 

IV. The Surgeon's Knife Dethrones a Hindu 

Idol 48 

V. Yes, or No? Instructions Wanted . 62 

VI. Those Torn-Up Gospels . . . 66 

VII. The Hindu Judge's Opinion of the Bible 72 

VIII. Marketing the Bible . . . .76 

IX. A Medico-Evangelistic Tour . . 85 

X. Hinduism as It Is . . , .100 

XL '^ Lord Ganesa " and Little Ramaswami, in 

XII. A Brahman's Testimony . . -115 

XIII. A Daybreak Audience and a Chase for a 

Tiger . . . . . .121 

XIV. The Spotted Tiger Foiled . . . 131 
XV. The Heat in India: How I Keep My 

Study Cool . . . . -138 

XVI. Oddities of Travel in India . . 145 

XVII. A Missionary Sanitarium . . .172 

9 



Contents 

CHAP. PAGE 

XVIII. How the " Cut " Cuts . , . 182 

XIX. How Hindu Christians Give , -195 

XX. A Merchant of Means Joins Us . 207 

XXL ''Break Cocoanuts Over the Wheels" . 212 

XXII. The Weaving of India Rugs or God's 

Plans in Our Lives . . . 218 

XXIIL ''Despondent Missionaries " . > .227 

XXIV. The Change of Front in India . . 232 

XXV. Vernacular Preaching : Is it Ineffective ? 247 

XXVI. A Unique Missionary Meeting on the 

Himalayas . . . . -255 
XXVII. The Oriental "Bride of the Lamb" . 265 



10 



Illustrations 

The Madanapalle Church bidding farewell to Dr. 

and Mrs. Chamberlain Frontispiece 

FACING FAGB 

Snake Charmers with Cobras | 

The Bungalow near which was the Cobra's Den |" • • • • 

'« The Hermitage " where the Snake-bitten Hindu Told 

His Story 28 



The Mahaswami of Nalaporapalle 1 « 

A Hindu Sanyasi j ^ • • 4 

[ 76 



India Buffaloes Bathing 
A Hindu Street Scene . 

A Hindu Funeral Scene 'J 
A Temple Elephant . . / 



112 



Ascending the Pulney Mountains to Kodai Kanal . . \ , 

A Toddy Climber Tapping Palmyra Trees for Toddy J * ' ^ 



Kodai Kanal Lake and Sanitarium 172 

Hindu Potters at their Work . 
A Group of Hindus at Dinner 



\ 212 

/ 



Under Training for a " Dancing Girl " 1 

An India Aloe Plant in Bloom . , . . / ^ 



11 



Introductory 

"Our Hindu Cousins" are probably the most 
interesting, and those most rewarding study, of 
any of the peoples of Asia. Whether from their 
ancient literature, antedating the Greek by many 
centuries; whether from their Primitive Religion, 
as set forth in their earlier Vedas, contemporary 
with Moses and the giving of the law on Mount 
Sinai; whether from their ancient civilisation, 
dating from the time when our European ances- 
tors were dressed in skins, roaming the forests / 
and living in huts and in caves; whether from 
their country with its diversified scenery and its 
varied climate, reaching from the ever scorching 
sand plains of Cape Comorin to the forever frozen 
peaks of the Himalayas, where stand the tallest 
giant mountains of the globe; whether from 
their famed specimens of ancient architecture, as 
exemplified in the Taj and other monuments; 
whether from their elegant works of art, in 
mosaics, in carved work, in embroidery; whether 
from their world-famed magicians, jugglers and 

13 



Introductory 

athletes; whether from their intricate Caste sys- 
tem, earliest of all Trade Unions, most effective 
of all Boycotts, which proved undoubtedly first a 
blessing to the land, and then, as it degenerated 
and was misused, the greatest curse resting upon 
them now for many generations, the people of 
India, in their former high estate, in their present 
degeneration, in the many-sided efforts now be- 
ing put forth for their regeneration and uplifting, 
are an intensely interesting subject for study and 
investigation. 

The story of life and work among them, on 
whatever lines that work may run, political, mili- 
tary, commercial, scientific, sociological, or re- 
ligious, is sure of interested listeners if truly and 
realistically told. And the story of missionary 
life and missionary work and incident may well 
be known far more than it is by the Church in 
Home Lands, that is giving of its treasures and 
consecrating its sons and its daughters by in- 
creasing scores to the uplifting morally, intel- 
lectually and spiritually of India's interesting 
rhillions. 

It is among the Telugu people of India that the 
incidents and the work depicted in the following 
pages have mostly taken place. The Telugus in- 
habit the regions from Madras northward to 

14 



Introductory 

Ganjam, from latitude 13° four hundred miles 
north to 19°, and from the seacoast of the Indian 
Ocean, or Bay of Bengal, west to and including 
large portions of the dominions of the Maharajah 
of Mysore and of the Nizam of Hyderabad. 

These Telugus numbernearly twenty millions 
of people. They, living on the seacoast, were 
anciently maritime in their tendencies, having, 
two thousand years ago, made voyages for trade 
and left some colonies in far off Borneo and Java 
and adjacent islands. They were adepts in Medi- 
cine and Surgery as long ago as Alexander the 
Great's invasion of India, 525 b. c, as vouched 
for by the historians of that invasion who speak 
of the aid received by them from the Andhra 
(Telugu) surgeons in the treatment of their 
wounded. They had an extensive literature and 
some large libraries, which were, however, as far 
as possible, destroyed and obliterated by the Mo- 
hammedans when they conquered the Telugus, 
and sought thus to break their spirit and compass 
their lasting subjugation. 

The Telugus are physically the tallest and best 
developed of all the races of Southern India and 
are, in the main, a courteous, kindly, intelligent, 
ingenuous, and now again progressive people. 
Their features are more of a European cast and 

15 



Introductory 

their color from that of a mulatto to that of a 
Spaniard. 

Of the forty distinct languages, and the one 
hundred divergent dialects spoken in India, the 
Telugu is spoken by more people than any other 
language with the exception of perhaps five or 
six. It is a mellifluous and beautiful language, 
possessing a very copious vocabulary, with such 
abundant verbal forms, conjugations and declen- 
sions, and modes, active, passive and middle, 
with reflexive, causative, intensive variations of 
all three, that it takes over one thousand forms 
thoroughly to conjugate and decline one such 
verb. It is thus peculiarly adapted to the expres- 
sion of all possible phases of an idea. It is a 
language of Poetry and Song. Even their an- 
cient works on grammar and arithmetic, astron- 
omy, astrology, medicine, law and philosophy 
are all written in poetry, and are always chanted 
or intoned in reading. Their language antedates 
the coming down into India of the Aryans, who 
brought with them their still more cultivated 
Sanskrit, and who farther enriched the Telugu by 
contributing to it nearly as many Sanskrit words 
as the English received from the Latin and Greek 
languages combined. In fact about one-third of 
the vocables now in use among the Telugus are 

16 



Introductory 

Sanskrit, introduced, in their true Sanskrit form, 
but usually with Telugu case terminations added, 
into the body of the language. 

The religion of the Telugus, as of all modern 
Hindus, is a debased form of the ancient Vedic 
Hinduism, and is fully described in the chapter 
"Hinduism as it is." 

It is among these Telugus that it has been my 
delight to live, and for them to labor for these 
forty years, and for whom, God willing, my re- 
maining days are to be spent, and "My heart's 
desire and prayer to God for them is that they 
may be saved." 



17 



THE COBRA S DEN 

It was a hot Sunday morning in India, with- 
out a cloud in the brazen skies. We had just 
come home from early morning service in our 
Telugu Native Church, and had taken our seats 
at the breakfast-table. At the open door of our 
dining-room our Telugu school-teacher appeared 
and said : 

"Sir, a big cobra has just been chasing a frog 
through the whole length of your front veranda. 
He struck at it again and again as it sprang past 
the open doors of the sitting-room, but the frog, 
uttering piercing shrieks, — as a frog can when 
pursued by a serpent, — sprang each time quick 
enough to elude its jaws, and together they 
rushed off the south end of the veranda, and the 
frog sprang under a box that is standing there, 
too near down upon the hard floor for the big 
cobra to get under, and so escaped." 

"Where is the cobra now ? " 

"That is just what I don't know," said he, 

"for, while I was looking to see what had be- 

19 



The Cobra's Den 

come of the frog, how he had got away, the 
cobra disappeared among the flower pots and I 
cannot see where he has gone." 

"He must have a hole there, close by the 
veranda somewhere. Will you please go and 
watch until I come, and see if you can get sight 
of him again, for he must be killed, if possible, 
if he lives as near the house as that." 

I don't go a shooting on Sunday, but I went 
for my pistol then, for I considered it decidedly 
a work of necessity and mercy to put an end to 
the danger of ourselves or our people being bitten, 
by that deadly cobra. Soon appearing with a 
revolver, which I keep for travelling through the 
jungles by night, I went to hunting for the 
cobra's den. 

Two large earthen flower pots stood about six 
feet from the end of the veranda, with each a 
beautiful rose growing in it, of which my wife 
was very fond, and beside which she almost 
daily stood picking off dead leaves, or watering 
and tending the roses. I soon discovered a hole 
in the ground about as large as my wrist, partly 
concealed by the grass that was growing right 
between the two flower pots, which were far 
enough apart for a person to stand between 
them, The hole went down perpendicularly, 

^0 




SNAKE CHARMERS WITH COBRAS 




THE BUNGALOW NEAR THE COBRA'S DEN 



The Cobra's Den 

growing larger as it went deeper. It took but a 
moment to bring a hand mirror and throw the 
reflection of the bright sun right down into the 
hole. It revealed a horizontal chamber, or den, 
only a foot or so deep and the glistening scales 
of a cobra coiled up at rest. 

Taking a piece of a broken wagon tire in my 
left hand to stop up the hole with, and placing the 
end of it slantingly in the hole, I fired down into 
the den. Not a motion was seen. I had missed. 
Turning the tire up edgewise, I fired again. 
What a squirming there was! His Majesty, the 
cobra, had been wounded. He struck up, vi- 
ciously at the iron, which was turned down flat 
as soon as I had fired, to keep him from darting 
out at us. I turned the iron edgewise and fired 
again, and again. 

When I had unloaded the sixth barrel, I let him 
strike his head out, and caught it against the side 
with the iron tire. I had brought out with me a 
pair of large hedge shears. With these I caught 
hold of his protruding neck, and with a stout 
pull with both hands, pulled him out and gave 
him a flirt out into the ''compound." What a 
scattering there was of men, women and chil- 
dren! My attention had been so taken up by 
the snake that I had not noticed what a crowd 

21 



The Cobra's Den 

had gathered around. Hearing the sound of 
shooting on Sunday in the mission compound 
or door-yard, they had judged that something 
strange was going on and had rushed in to 
see. 

How they screamed and ran! for they did not 
know that the grip of the shears had dislocated 
the fellow's neck, and, seeing a full-sized cobra 
flying out toward them, they seemed to think 
that he was springing at them, and the soles of a 
good many pairs of feet were visible to one who 
stood near whence the snake had made his long 
leap. 

As I had grasped the head of the cobra with 
the shears, I had given the wagon tire to the 
teacher asking him to insert the end again, in- 
stantly that I drew the cobra out, for where one 
cobra is you will usually find a second. I came 
back and threw the rays of the sun in again. 
Yes, there were bright cobra's scales, and an- 
other cobra wriggling. 

Loading my pistol again I repeated the firing, 
hoping that he would strike his head up out, so 
that I could catch his head also. Squirm and 
strike as he did, his head did not come out of the 
hole until I had fired many times, but it finally 
came, and I secured him also. On drawing him 

22 



The Cobra's Den 

out and examining him closely we found four- 
teen pistol ball holes through his body, and still 
there was fight in him. Any three of the holes 
would have proved fatal in time, but he died 
making a splendid fight. We laid the cobras 
out in the veranda and measured them. One of 
them measured five feet eleven inches, and the 
other six feet and two inches, than which one 
rarely finds a cobra larger. 

Their hole showed that they had evidently 
been living there right among the flower pots 
that were tended daily and within six feet of our 
veranda and within twelve feet of my study door 
for weeks or months. A short time after some 
expert snake-charmers were summoned to rid 
our compound of serpents. In half an hour, 
while we were intently watching, they had, 
with their weird, enchanting music, charmed and 
enticed from holes not noted by me before, in 
the grass and under the shrubbery about our 
door yard, and dextrously captured, one by one, 
five more full-sized cobras. And though the 
cobra is the deadliest serpent known, and thou- 
sands of persons die of their bite yearly in India, 
no one in our mission has ever been harmed by 
one. Verily ''He shall give His Angels charge 

over thee to keep thee in all thy ways " is the 

23 



The Cobra's Den 

unbidden exclamation of many a missionary in 
such a time. 

The above incident, as an illustration of a deep 
truth, has given me great cheer during the past 
year. 

The fact is known all over Christendom that 
Hinduism has never been so fierce in its opposi- 
tion, so vigorous and so vicious in its attacks on 
missionaries and their work as now. Hindu 
Tract Societies, Hindu Preaching Societies, have 
been established in the great cities, with branches 
all through the country. These Hindu Tract 
Societies issue very few books and tracts for in- 
culcating their own religion. Nearly all of their 
multitudinous issues are violent attacks on Chris- 
tianity and on Christ; on missionaries and their 
work. Every old and exploded infidel objection 
from the Occident is brought forth with a clang 
of cymbals, and made to do service in the Ori- 
ent, now angrily awakening. The most abso- 
lutely untrue charges against missions, mission- 
aries and converts, are printed and scattered by 
the hundred-thousand. The venom is fairly spit 
out in jets as was the venom of those cobras on 
the iron. 

Hindu ''preachers" are sent out from head- 
quarters into the regions where the different 

24 



The Cobra's Den 

missionaries are working, not to preach and 
explain the doctrines of Hinduism so much as to 
make attacks on Christianity and the missionary 
work. In many places their preachers seem to 
make little effort to gather audiences for them-^ 
selves, but have messengers out here and there, 
and if a missionary or native pastor, or catechist 
gathers an audience in a street, or in a wayside: 
shed, to tell them of the love of Christ, down' 
they come and, taking a stand near, begin to 
pour out blasphemy and lies and seek to draw 
away or disperse their audiences. 

We are not altogether sorry to have it so. 
Nothing is so disheartening as the stolid or 
contemptuous indifference so often manifested 
in past years. The intensity of their opposition 
attracts public attention widely to our message ; 
to our weapons that are doing them this damage. 
We know now that Hinduism has been hit; that 
it has been vitally wounded. It is madly striking 
back in sheer desperation. My cobra friends 
were not disturbed by the noise of my first 
shots. What did they care for my banging 
away so long as they were not hit ? But when, 
with better aim, the bullets began to pierce their 
coils, how those cobras squirmed ! 

Thus it is with the now intensely antagonistic 

25 



/ 
/ 



The Cobra's Den 

Hinduism. Sneering indifference is past. The 
contest waxes hot. The wild, unreasoning strik- 
ing back tells of mortal wounds inflicted ; pres- 
ages victory for our Immanuel Captain, if we 
wisely, ceaselessly, zealously press the conflict. 
Now is the time to rally for India's conquest for 
Christ. 



26 



II 

THE SNAKE-BITTEN HINDU'S STORY 

I AM Up on a little mountain in our mission 
district, fifteen miles from Madanapalle. It 
stands 1,750 feet above the Madanapalle plain, 
and is, in the hot season, some ten degrees 
cooler. I have built here a little ''hermitage," 
to which I can come for quiet literary work. 
The brain works more satisfactorily and rapidly 
with the lower temperature and the absence of 
the continual interruptions to which the mis- 
sionary at his own station is perpetually subject. 
Driving out to the foot of the mountain very 
early Monday morning, and climbing up the 
rough, crooked path to the summit soon after 
sunrise, I can have five clear days with my 
amanuensis for my work in helping to prepare 
Telugu Christian literature for the native Church, 
and go down again Friday evening to have 
Saturday and Sunday at my station for other 
duties. Thus I am up here now, but my usual 
isolation was interrupted one day last week by a 
very pleasing incident. 

27 



The Cobra's Den 

I was sitting at my desk writing and glancing 
out upon the mountain scenery when ih the wide 
open doorway a figure appeared, and looking up 
I saw a man from one of our native Christian 
villages ten miles beyond this, who with salaams 
and inquiries for my health told me that he had 
come as the escort of a well-to-do, high-caste 
Telugu landholder, who lived in the caste village 
adjacent to theirs, and who had come up to 
render his thanks to me for saving his life when 
he was a lad and had been bitten by a deadly 
serpent. Would I be pleased to give him audi- 
ence? He was waiting in the adjoining clump 
of trees to know whether I could receive ^im 
now. 

He soon appeared with a tray of rock candy, 

cocoanuts and limes. Making low obeisance, in 

feeling words he expressed his gratitude to me 

for what I had done so long ago for him. He 

had sent, when I was up here the week before, 

saying that for fifteen years he had not had the 

opportunity of seeing me; might he come up 

here this week for the purpose ? So I had had 

the opportunity of reviving my somewhat hazy 

memory of what had occurred so long ago. His 

name was Timmaya Reddi. His age now about 

forty. 

28 



The Snake-Bitten Hindu's Story 

I asked him to be seated, and for well on to 
half an hour he talked, pouring out his gratitude, 
and recounting in minute detail the occurrences 
of that momentous day in his life. I have since 
conversed with one of our native Christians who 
was there and saw him after he was bitten, and 
saw the venomous reptile that inflicted the 
wound, and was at my tent while I was treating 
him, and who confirmed his statements in every 
particular. I will give his story and, where I 
can, will give it in his own words, turned into 
English. 

" It was more than two decades ago — I know 

not just how many years — but I was then only 

a boy of fifteen, and now I have a wife and 

children. It was just after you had placed the 

sole of your foot down solidly at Timmareddi- 

palle and Nalcheruvupalle, and the people of 

those hamlets had joined your Veda. (It must 

have been in the autumn of 1872 or spring of 

1873, twenty-four years ago.) It was early 

morning. I had gone with my uncle out to our 

sugar-cane field to see that the irrigation channels 

were open and the field being properly watered. 

One channel seemed clogged. I pressed in among 

the tall cane to see what was the matter. What 

seemed like a reddish-brown stick of wood, 

^9 



The Cobra's Den 

larger than my arm at the shoulder, lay across 
the channel in the water. Leaves and grass had 
lodged upon it and hindered the water s flow. It 
was too dark for me to see that it was a sleeping 
serpent. I raised my crooked axe, or bill-hook, 
and struck it a blow to break it and draw it out 
of the way. The rotten log, as I thought it, 
squirmed and turned upon me. I saw the head, 
the eyes, the fangs of a deadly serpent. 

"Back 1 sprang with all my might, shouting 
for my uncle. The serpent was spryer than I. 
Into my right ankle he drove those fangs. Ugh! 
How his eyes glared as he turned and ran off, 
showing the big gash 1 had made with my axe 
in his body, only a cubit from his head. That 
glare of his eyes, those horrid fangs, that blood- 
spurting gash in his body were the last things 
these eyes saw that morning as 1 fell over among 
the sugar-cane. How the pains shot up my leg! 
How my heart began to flutter! How soon my 
eyes became dim and shut as in death! 

"My uncle sprang in and caught me by the 

shoulders just in time to see the serpent, five 

cubits long, disappear among the thick cane. 

No, it was not a cobra. Cobras are not so large ; 

but this is regarded as equally deadly and is as 

much dreaded by us. Out my uncle dragged me 

30 



The Snake-Bitten Hindu's Story 

into the open, threw me on his shoulder, ran 
with me to our house in the village and laid me, 
limp as dead, on the bench at my mother's door. 
I knew nothing from the time I fell over in the 
cane, but I have heard my uncle and my mother 
and my cousins so often recount all that hap- 
pened that day, that I can see it all with my eyes, 
though they then were closed and dead, and I 
can tell you everything that took place that day. 

"Up went the death wail. The village was 
gathered at our door to see me as I lay on the 
settee, just barely breathing. ' Do this,' said one. 
'It's no use, the death mark is on him,' was the 
reply. 'Do that,' said another. 'Did we not 
try it when this very serpent bit Ramayya, and 
he never opened his eyes ?' ' Who has a snake- 
stone ? They say it will extract the poison. Is 
there not one in this village ? ' ' No, and if there 
were, one has never been known to cure the bite 
of this king of poisons.' 

"Just then there came running up some of 
your Christians, who had heard the shouts and 
seen the commotion from their hamlet a few 
rods away. 'The missionary doctor! The mis- 
sionary doctor!' shouted they. 'Quick! take 
the boy to him. He came last night to Tim- 

mareddipalle. He is in his tent there now, He 

3X 



The Cobra's Den 

never fails to cure any snake bite that is brought 
to him. Take him and run! ' 

"'Where is there a cart to put him in?' 
' Don't wait for any cart. He will be dead be- 
fore you can get him there by the cart road. 
Take him on your shoulders and run by the 
short cut. It's only a mile by the short foot- 
path.' 

" Onto his strong shoulders my uncle instantly 
threw me. Down the sloping rock, across the 
gully, up through the bushes on the other side 
and over ploughed fields he ran. Two vigorous 
cousins ran at his sides, and every now and then 
took me from his shoulder onto theirs as they 
ran. Down through the dry tank bed, up over 
the rocks, on they sped, for death was at their 
heels. Another cousin, the fleetest runner of the 
village, ran on ahead to your tent to bear the 
news and let you get ready. Panting, they 
brought me up to your tent and laid me on the 
grass under a tree at your tent door. You were 
there ready, and one of your trained men to help 
you, for from before sunrise your tent had been 
surrounded by patients whom you were treating. 
All gave way as they brought the snake-bitten 
boy up. 

" ' Can he cure him ? Can he cure him ?' ran 



The Snake-Bitten Hindu's Story 

the question through the crowd. ' No, it is too 
late. He's dead already,' was the sad reply. 
My uncle says he thought so, too, but that you 
said 'Steady! no noise, no commotion, no wail- 
ing, only do as I say.' How eagerly he and they 
watched you. 

" As they laid me down you had in your hand 
a bottle of that Magic Poison Killing Liquid. 
[Liquor Ammoniae Fortissimus, which we use 
for cobra, viper and scorpion stings.] Up my 
nostrils you threw some of its spray; with a 
stick you pried open my set teeth, and poured 
some of it, mixed with water, into my mouth; 
strongly you rubbed the front of my neck and 
milked it down my throat. Your assistant the 
while was pulling open the fang wounds on my 
ankle with his finger nail and dropping in drop 
by drop the poison killer, that it might follow 
up the very course taken by the poison, while 
another was with the same magic liquid bathing 
the leg over the ascending vein, which was be- 
ginning to feel hard and ropy all the way up to 
the body. 

"The commotion had all ceased. In intense 
expectancy the fifty people around watched all 
that you did, so quietly and yet so confidently. 
You had my arms constantly moved back and 

33 



The Cobra's Den 

forth, also, to help the breathing, you said, and 
that gave my uncle something to do and made 
him less anxious. Half an hour had not passed 
before 1 opened my eyes and asked where I was, 
and what had happened, for until then you had 
been constantly repeating the doses of the magic 
fluid. Soon 1 sat up, and the power of the poison 
was gone. What wonderful medicine that poi- 
son-killing liquid is, if one knows how to use it. 

'* In an hour, leaning on the arm of my uncle, 
I walked to the house of my great aunt in the 
village adjacent to which your tent was pitched. 
Several times that day and in the evening and the 
next morning you came to her house to see how 
I got on and to administer anything further that 
was needed, and on the second day I walked 
back to my village and into my mother's house, 
whence I had been carried almost a corpse. 

*'That was before you went away to the far- 
off America land the first time. I saw you once 
after your return, at the close of the great famine, 
and gave you my thanks; but now for fifteen 
years and more I have not beheld your face. I 
am alive through your kindness and skill. My 
wife and my children revere your name and in- 
voke blessings on your head. Five months ago 
I heard of your return from America once more, 

34 



The Snake-Bitten Hindu's Story 

to this land that owes you so much, and ever 
since I have desired to see you, and once more 
tell you how grateful I am for what you did for 
me. I have come this ten miles on foot through 
the hills to-day once more to see your face and 
receive your benediction." 

Is it any wonder that I was moved by the re- 
cital, and by his deep and reverential gratitude ? 
My heart yearned toward him with an intense 
desire to do him still more good. I told him of 
the *' Old Serpent " and of the sting of sin ; of the 
Great Physician who can, who surely will cure 
all who will apply to Him ; all who have that sin- 
venom coursing in their veins. I told him how 
we are all spiritually dead from this poison ; how 
the eyes of our understanding are already closed 
from its venom. I told him of the blood of Jesus, 
that poison killer that kills the sin-venom and 
gives life— yes, eternal life — to every one who ac- 
cepts its application and by faith clasps the hand 
of that Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour. I 
pressed him with earnest words to come to that 
Jesus Christ now and receive a healing far more 
marvellous, far more blessed than that which, by 
God's help, I had conferred on him. He went 
away thoughtful and grateful. The fruitage of 

this interview — may it be to him eternal life. 

35 



Ill 

THE ANGRY MOB AND THE STORY OF THE CROSS 

"Swing shut the city gates; run and tell the 
sentinels to stand guard and let no one pass in or 
out till we have made way with these preachers 
of other gods. No news shall ever go out of the 
city as to what has become of them." 

It was in a walled city of some 20,000 inhab- 
itants in the Kingdom of Hyderabad, within 
twenty miles of its capital, as we were on a gos- 
pel preaching tour, the first ever made through 
the Kingdom of the Nizam, in August, 1863, 
which is more fully spoken of in " In The Tiger 
Jungle." 

We had been travelling since early morning, 
preaching in all the towns and villages on our 
way, and arrived before the gates of the city 
during the heat of the day, and camped outside 
of its walls. We had heard of it as the wicked- 
est city of the realm. 

About three p. M., my four native assistants went 
into the city to offer Scriptures and tracts for sale, 
I promising to join them when the heat should be 

36 



Angry Mob and Story of the Cross 

a little less. After half or three-quarters of an 
hour I went through the iron gates, the largest 
and strongest city gates that I had up to that 
time seen. The city, with its high granite walls 
lay four square, with a gate in the middle of each 
side, and the main streets running from gate to 
gate, crossing each other at right angles at the 
market-place. 

Just after entering the gate, I met my native as- 
sistants returning, with a hooting rabble follow- 
ing them. Speaking to me in the Tamil lan- 
guage, not understood by those people, they told 
me that it was not safe to attempt to do any work 
within the city. They had sold a few gospels 
and tracts to both Mohammedans and Hindus. 
The Mohammedan zealots and Brahman priests 
had been diligently examining the gospels and 
saw that their systems must go if these Scriptures 
were believed, and Mohammedans and Hindus 
joined in an effort to stop the people buying and 
drive the catechists out of the city. Herod and 
Pilot became friends for this purpose. 

Some of the gospels were bound in yellowish 
buff bookbinder's muslin. The Mohammedans 
sent messengers running through the streets say- 
ing that they were bound in hog skin, and warn- 
ing the faithful not to touch them. The Brah- 

37 



The Cobra's Den 

mans sent messengers to tell the Hindus that they 
were bound in calf skin, the skin of the sacred 
cow, and telling them not to be polluted by 
them. They had not only prevented the people 
from buying but had incited the rabble to drive 
the catechists out of the city. 

"Have you preached to the people?" said I 
to the catechists. ''Have you proclaimed the 
gospel message?" 

"No, sir, we have only sold a few books and 
tracts." 

" Then we must do so now. Did we not, be- 
fore we left our home, make a solemn vow that 
we would not pass a single town or village with- 
out proclaiming the Master's message, and have 
we not His covenant, ' Lo, I am with you ' ? I 
at least must go to the market-place and preach. 
You need not accompany me unless you think it 
best." 

"We did make that vow. We will go with 
you," said they. 

The rabble had halted and quieted as they 
heard the foreigner talking with the catechists in 
a strange tongue, waiting to see what would 
come of it. We walked with slow and firm 
step up the street to the market. The crowd 
followed, increasing by the way. Seeing a for- 

38 



Angry Mob and Story of the Cross 

eigner with the catechists boldly walking up the 
street, the Brahman and Mohammedan zealots 
joined the throng. 

We reached the centre of the town where the 
main streets crossed and where was the market- 
place, vith a roof supported upon large masonry 
pillars. Stepping up the steps I said in Tamil to 
the catechists, "Place your backs against these 
pillars, so that no one can attack you from be- 
hind, and keep a sharp watch on all, but show 
no signs of fear. The Master is with us; His 
promise is good." 

As we stood there we could see three of the 
four city gates standing wide open with the 
armed gate-keepers sitting under the arch of the 
gateways. Turning I spoke politely to the peo- 
ple in Telugu, which was understood by all. 

" Leave this place at once," was the angry re- 
sponse. 

I comphmented them on the polite reception . 
which they gave to visitors, telling them I had 
visited more than a thousand towns in the Te- 
lugu country, but that it had been reserved for 
them to show the most polite reception that I 
had thus far received. A few smiled, but the 
rest only scowled the more. 

** Friends," said 1, "I have come from far to 

39 



The Cobra's Den 

tell you some good news. I will tell that to you 
and then we will go." 

" No," said some who were evidently leaders, 
"we will not hear you. We have found out 
that you have come to proclaim another God. 
You do so at your peril. You see this angry 
mob. One word from us and you are dead. 
Say not another word but leave the city instantly 
and we will see you safely out of the gates. 
Dare to say a word against our gods and we 
loose this mob on you." 

We had seen the angry mob tearing up the 
cobble paving-stones and gathering them in the 
skirts of their garments to stone us with. 

** We have no desire to abuse your gods," said 
I, "but have come to deliver a message. We 
will not go until we have proclaimed that mes- 
sage." 

Then came the order, "Swing shut the gates." 

1 saw one nudge another saying, "You throw 
the first stone and I will throw the second." 
But all who had stones to throw were within my 
vision, and they quailed a little under my keen 
glance, and hesitated. I seemed to feel the pres- 
ence of the Master as though He were standing 
by my side with His hand on my shoulder, say- 
ing, "I am with you. I will tell you what to 

40 



Angry Mob and Story of the Cross 

say." I was not conscious of any anxiety about 
my personal safety. My whole soul was 
wrapped up in the thought " How shall I get my 
Master's offer of salvation before these people ? " 

"Brothers," said I, "it is not to revile your 
gods that I have come this long way ; far from 
it. I have come to you with a royal message 
from a king far higher than your Nizam ; I have 
come to tell a story sweeter than mortal ear has 
ever heard. But it is evident that this multitude 
does not wish to hear it." They thought that I 
was weakening and quieted down to see what 
was going to happen. 

" But," said I, " I see five men before me who 
do wish to hear my story. Will you all please step 
back a little ? I will tell these five who want to 
know why I have come here and what is my mes- 
sage, and then you may stone me. I will make 
no resistance then." I had been carefully scan- 
ning the crowd and had selected my men, for I 
had seen five honest countenances who had 
shown no sympathy with the abuse that had 
been heaped upon us. 

" Brother with the red-bordered turban," said 
I, addressing a venerable Brahman who stood 
among the people at the right; "you would 
like to hear what my wonderful story is, before 

41 



The Cobra's Den 

they stone me, would you not ? Be frank and 
say so, for there are four others like you who 
wish to hear." 

"Yes, sir, I would like to hear what your 
story is," said he, speaking up courageously and 
kindly. 

'' Brother with the gold-bordered turban at my 
left, you too would like to hear, and you with 
the yellow turban, and you with the brown- 
bordered, and you with the pink." 

I had rightly judged those men, for each as- 
sented. They were curious to know what I had 
to say. 

"Now will you five men please come forward, 
and I will tell you alone. All you others step 
back; step back; as soon as 1 have told these five 
the story you may come forward and throw 
your stones." 

The five came forward; the rest reluctantly 
stepped back a little. I had purposely chosen 
Brahmans as I thought that I could win them the 
better. 

"Brothers," said I, in a subdued tone, "what 
is it that you chant as you go to the river for 
your daily ablutions ? Is it not this, 

*« ' Pap6ham, papakarmaham, papatma, papa sambhavaha, 
Trahi mam, Krupaya Deva, Sharana gata vatsala,' " 

42 



Angry Mob and Story of the Cross 

said I, chanting it in Sanskrit, ''and is not this its 
meaning," said I in Telugu. 

"I am a sinner, my actions are sinful. My 
soul is sinful. All that pertains to me is polluted 
with sin. Do Thou, O God, that hast mercy on 
those who seek Thy refuge, do Thou take away 
my sin." 

These five Brahmans at once became my 
friends. One who correctly chants their Vedas 
and their mantras they always look up to with 
respect. 

**Now, do you know how God can do what 
you ask ? How He can take away the burden of 
our sin, and give us relief ?" 

**No, sir, we do not know. Would that we 
knew." 

"I know; I have learned the secret; s.^a11 I tell 
you?" 

** Yes, sir, please tell us." 

The multitude seeing the Brahmans convers- 
ing with the foreigner with evident respect, 
quieted still more and pressed forward to 
listen. 

''Step back, step back," said I. "It is only 
these five to whom I am to tell my story. If the 
rest of you listen it is on your own responsi- 
bility. Step back, and let me tell these five 

43 



The Cobra's Den 

alone." This only increased their desire to hear, 
as I went on : 

** Brothers, is it possible for us by our own 
acts to expiate our sins ? Can we, by painful 
journeys to the holiest of all your holy places, 
change those sinful natures that you bemoan ? 
Does not your own Telugu Poet, Vemana say: 

"The Muslim who to Tirupati goes, on pilgrimage, 
Does not thereby become a saint of Siva's house. 
Becomes a dog a lion when he bathes in Ganges' stream ? 
Benares turns not harlot into pure and trusted wife." 

Hearing their own language chanted, the peo- 
ple pressed forward still more intently. "Nay, 
brothers, it is not by these outward acts even of 
utmost austerity that we can attain to harmony 
with God. Does not your beloved Vemana again 
say: 

" 'Tis not by roaming deserts wild, nor gazing at the sky; 
'Tis not by bathing in the stream, nor pilgrimage to shrine ; 
But thine own heart must thou make pure, and then, and then 

alone, 
Shalt thou see Him no eye hath kenned, shalt thou behold thy 

King." 

"Now, how can our hearts be made pure, so 
that we may see God ? I have learned the secret, 
and will tell you." 

Then I told the story of stories ; the story of 
redeeming love; and, as I recounted the love of 

44 



Angry Mob and Story of the Cross 

God the Father, who "so loved the world"; the 
birth in the manger of Bethlehem of the Lord of 
Life when He took on human form; His won- 
derful life here below; His blessed words; His 
marvellous deeds of healing and mercy, the mob 
became an audience. Gradually and impercepti- 
bly I had raised my voice until, as I spoke in the 
clear and resonant Telugu, all down those three 
streets the multitude could hear, and as I told 
them of His rejection by those He had come to 
save, and pictured that scene on Calvary, in the 
graphic words that He Himself gave me that 
day, when for us men, and for our salvation, He 
was left to cry, *'My God, My God, why hast 
Thou forsaken Me ? " and told them that it was 
for them too, far away here in India, that He had 
suffered this agony on the cross, and shed His 
life-blood and died, down many a cheek of those 
who had been clamouring for our life, I saw tears 
coursing and dropping upon the pavements that 
they had torn up to stone us with. Far earlier in 
the story I had seen them stealthily dropping 
their armfuls of stones into the gutter, and come 
back to listen. 

How they listened as I went on to tell them of 
the laying of His body in the tomb; of His burst- 
ing the bands of death, on the morning of the 

45 



The Cobra's Den 

third day, and coming forth triumphing over the 
last enemy; of His associating for many days 
with, and His teaching His disciples, and of His 
ascension from Mt. Olivet, passing up through 
the clouds to be with His Father and our Father, 
to prepare mansions for us, and told them that 
now all we had to do was to repent and forsake 
our sins, and lift up the voice of prayer to Him, 
for He could understand every language, and say 
'*0, Jesus Christ, I am a sinner. I cannot get rid 
of my sin, but Thou canst take it away: take 
away my sin I pray thee, and give me a new 
heart, and make me Thy disciple," and that He 
would do all the rest, and that when our time 
should come to die, He would take our souls to 
heaven to dwell with Him in bliss eternal. 

"Now," said I, folding my arms, and standing 
before them, "I have finished my story. You 
may stone me now. I will make no resist- 
ance." 

'"No, no," said they, "we don't want to stone 
you now. We did not know whose messenger 
you were, nor what you had come to tell us. 
Do those books that you have tell more about this 
wonderful Redeemer?" 

"Yes," said I, "this is the history of His life 
on earth;" and taking up a gospel of Luke 1 read 

46 



Angry Mob and Story of the Cross 

brief portions here and there, adding, "I have 
not told you half of His gracious words and 
deeds. We are going on our way in the early 
morning. Would you not like to buy some of 
these histories of the Redeemer Jesus, so that you 
can learn all about Him, even though we have 
gone our way ? " 

With that their wallets were produced and 
they purchased all we had of the gospel of Luke; 
taking up another gospel I explained that the 
same story in the main was told in this, with dif- 
ferent words and incidents. And taking a tract 
I told them that these explained the gospels, and 
made more clear the way of life. They purchased 
all the gospels and tracts we had with us, and 
appointed a deputation of their best men to 
escort us to our camp, begging us to forgive 
them for the insults they had heaped upon us, for 
they knew not whose messengers we were. 

Verily the story of the cross has not lost its 
power. It still reaches the ear and touches the 
heart of men of every tongue, in every clime. 
Happy we, if we have a part in making known, 
here and in all the world that Story of The Cross. 



47 



IV 

THE surgeon's KNIFE DETHRONES A HINDU IDOL 

It was a busy day in my little dispensary-hos- 
pital in India, 1 50 miles inland from Madras, in a 
region where up to that time, for this was more 
than thirty years ago, no European surgery nor 
medical practice had been known. I had been 
sent there to open out missionary work in a new 
region, and knew of no better way of "opening 
out the work " and gaining the confidence and 
good-will, yes, and love of the people than by 
following the great missionary who "went about 
preaching the gospel of the Kingdom and heal- 
ing all manner of sickness and all manner of dis- 
ease among the people." My little dispensary 
was built of sun-dried bricks and thatched with 
rushes, and would hold from seventy to one 
hundred people, besides the space railed off for 
prescribing and dispensing the medicines. In the 
rear was a little thatched veranda, screened with 
"tatties," for surgical operations. 

I had opened the door as the sun peeped over 
the horizon. It had been given out widely that 

48 




C/5 

Q 

I— t 




< 

Oh 
< 

PL. 
< 

<! 

O 

(—1 

'< 



Surgeon's Knife Dethrones Hindu Idol 

every one who was present at the morning 
preaching and prayer would be treated, no mat- 
ter how long it took, before my going home for 
breakfast, and at sunrise we would usually find 
twenty to fifty already waiting at the door. A 
catechist sat at the door, recording the name, age 
and residence of all who entered, giving each one 
a numbered ticket, on the back of which was 
printed a clear, succinct statement of Christian 
truth, of Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world. I 
sat at my prescribing table, receiving the patients 
in the order in which they had come in, diagnos- 
ing each case and prescribing the remedies. 
Each one thus prescribed for sat on a bench at 
the side with his gospel ticket in his hand, with 
his name, town and number recorded on it, read- 
ing the statement of salvation by Jesus Christ 
printed on the back of the ticket, if they could 
read, while my assistant was putting up his or 
her medicines, for among the farmer and artisan 
classes women as well as men came for treat- 
ment. As the medicines were prepared they 
were placed in a row on a shelf at my right, to 
be explained and given out after the religious ex- 
ercises. 

As soon as the room was well filled, half an 
hour or more after the opening, I would push 

49 



The Cobra's Den 

aside my medicines and instruments, and tak- 
ing down my Telugu Bible read from "God's Mes- 
sage to Mankind," and preach the gospel of the 
Kingdom, one day setting forth one lesson, and 
another a different one, but always portraying 
man's lost condition, and full and free salvation 
through Jesus Christ and Him alone. Then tell- 
ing them that we would now seek the blessing 
of the God of all upon us all, kneeling, with my 
assistants reverently kneeling around m«, I would 
pray to Our Father to bless the physician in pre- 
scribing for the sick, guide in the dispensing of 
the medicines and bless the medicines so as to 
produce a perfect cure, and that the Great Phy- 
sician would appear, and cure the malady of the 
soul of each one present. There was always 
perfect quiet and reverential attention during the 
brief prayer. Immediately at its close the medi- 
cines that had now been prayed over would be 
given out to those already treated, and then the 
others in the room would be treated in turn and 
medicines given. Surgical cases would wait 
until the room was cleared, or if severe and re- 
quiring chloroform, be told to come in the after- 
noon when I would have more time. The day 
of which I speak, nearly loo of these out patients 
had come for treatment, besides the friends who 

50 



Surgeon's Knife Dethrones Hindu Idol 

had come with them, and who also heard the 
gospel message. 

I had nearly completed the morning's treat- 
ment. It was approaching eleven o'clock and I 
was anxious to get through and go home to 
breakfast, when I heard the well-known semi- 
chant of men together bearing a burden, and 
looking out of the rear door I saw a sick man 
''borne of four," hung in a blanket, tied, ham- 
mock-like, to a long bamboo which rested on 
the shoulders of the four bearers. 

They laid him down gently upon the floor of 
the back veranda, saying that they had brought 
him two days' journey, for they had heard that 
the foreign doctor effected marvellous cures, 
and this, their friend, was beyond the skill of 
their doctors. With them there had come an 
elderly man, led by another, an uncle of the sick 
young man, who, they said, had recently lost 
his sight, and had come in hoping that the for- 
eign doctor could restore it. The young man 
was in a deplorable condition. Nothing but a 
serious surgical operation could save him. I 
very much feared that it was now too late for 
that, — that if it were attempted he would sink 
under the operation. So doubtful did I feel as 
to the propriety of attempting it at all, that I sim- 

51 



The Cobra's Den 

ply prescribed a restorative for him and for his 
uncle, and told them to give them nourishment 
and let them rest until 2 p. m., when I would 
examine them and see what could be done. As 
soon as I had finished the other patients I went 
home to breakfast and to rest a little, and looked 
up carefully, in my surgical books, the operation 
it would be necessary to perform, and then laid 
the case before the Master, asking, "Will the 
man endure the operation ? shall I perform it ? 
or shall I decline to perform it as hopeless? 
Teach me. Master, what to do." I seemed to re- 
ceive the assurance that, desperate as the case 
was, it would prove a success, and that it 
might introduce the gospel message into a new 
region. 

Buoyed up by this felt assurance, I went at 
two o'clock and, though with some misgiving, 
performed the operation. He seemed at first to 
have sunk under it. I cried to the Master to 
help. He rallied and, to my great joy, improved 
day by day and finally recovered. The treat- 
ment of the uncle was also so blessed of God 
that he recovered his sight. When at last I told 
them that they could now return to their homes 
cured, they asked if they might come to my 
house that evening to express their thanks and 

53 



Surgeon's Knife Dethrones Hindu Idol 

say good-bye, and they would then start with 
the cock-crowing of the coming morning. They 
came to my house, and after expressing their 
gratitude in the most touching and truly Oriental 
manner, they said, 

"Will the Dora please let us have copies of 
* The Divine Guru's History ' (the gospels) from 
which you have read daily in the hospital and 
about which you have daily preached, and some 
of the 'Spiritual Teaching' (a little booklet 
clearly explaining the way of salvation), for we 
want to take them home that our friends too 
may know the glad news ? " 

' ' Can you read ? " " No. " ' * Is there any one 
in your village who can read ?" "No," for they 
were weavers and farm labourers, and it is not 
the custom for them to be readers. 

"Of what use, then, will the books be to 
you?" 

" O, sir, let us have the books and we will get 
them read to us. When the cloth merchant 
comes to our village to get the cloths we weave, 
we will put one of these little books into his 
hands and say, 'Here, read us this book and 
then we will talk business,' and when the tax 
gatherer comes we will say, * Read us this book 
and then we will settle our taxes.' Only let us 

53 



The Cobra's Den 

have these books and we will see that they are 
read to all our village people. We too want to 
hear the glad sound once more, for we are never 
going to worship our old gods again. We will 
only worship the Divine Guru, Yesu Kristu (Je- 
sus Christ), who sent you here and helped you 
to heal us. You never could have saved us, — so 
desperate a condition were we in, — unless your 
God had helped you. Your God shall be our 
God from now and forever. We want all our 
village to know and love Him too. Please let us 
have the books." 

The books were given them gladly, and after 
farther earnest instruction in the way of Jesus and 
prayer to Him with and for them, we bade them 
farewell, saying, ** When this hot season is over 
we are coming out with our tents touring and 
preaching the good news to all in your region. 
We will then come to your village and see you 
and see your people. We shall hope to find you 
all believers in the Lord Jesus Christ." 

When the touring season began, we took our 
tents, myself and three native preachers, and 
went out into the Taluk, or county, named in 
the register, and preached in scores of towns and 
hamlets, but could hear of no village or hamlet 
of the recorded name. We were much disap- 

54 



Surgeon's Knife Dethrones Hindu Idol 

pointed. We had lost track of men whom I had 
believed to be in earnest. 

Two years and more passed by. We were 
again out touring, in a county or Taluk adjoin- 
ing the one where these men had been recorded 
as living. Our tents were pitched near a village 
the people of which had recently renounced 
heathenism, and registered themselves as dis- 
ciples of the Nazarene, and were under instruc- 
tion. In the central market town of the region, 
a mile from my tent, the weekly market was 
that day to be held. I had in the morning treated 
all the many sick that had come to my dispen- 
sary tent. At two o'clock we were all of us to 
go to the weekly bazaar to preach to the people 
who came together from fifty villages to buy and 
sell. Before that hour, however, I was on my 
bed with a very severe pull of my arch enemy, 
the jungle fever, and could not rise. My assist- 
ants went without me. 

About sunset they returned, finding me on my 
cot, with the fever still burning, and said, **0, 
sir, we have had such an interesting time, we 
had a succession of large and interested audi- 
ences, and at the close two men came up and 
asked earnestly, 'Are you the Doctor Padre's peo- 
ple ? and is he here ? He promised to come and 

55 



The Cobra's Den 

see us, but has never come. We want him to 
come, for we are all of us ready to give up our 
idols and join his religion.' " 

The grip of my fever seemed to loosen at once 
with this news. Springing up, I said, "Was 
not one of the two men a thick-set, dark com- 
plexioned young man under thirty, whose name 
was Ramudu ? and was not the other a tall, fair 
complexioned man of sixty, and his name Er- 
rapa ? " 

"Yes, sir," said they, "you have described 
the men and given their names. What do you 
know about them ? " 

"Those are the men that we were trying to 
find more than two years ago in the Kadiri 
Taluk. A mistake must have been made in re- 
cording the name of their Taluk. Where is their 
village ? We must be there by sunrise to-mor- 
row morning." 

"It is three or four miles from here, at the 
foot of those hills, but you are not able to go 
there so soon, after such fever." 

"My pony can carry me. Go we must. For 
more than two years have we been yearning and 
praying for those men. No time is to be lost 
now." 

At four o'clock the next morning we rose, had 

56 



Surgeon's Knife Dethrones Hindu Idol 

a cup of coffee, and a prayer to the Master to 
make the fifth in our party, or rather to be the 
first, and made our way across the fields and 
among the rocks. As we approached the village 
the sun was rising, and there, under the " Coun- 
cil-tree "at the head of the little village street, 
were gathered nearly all of the men, women and 
children of the hamlet, for they had seen us 
coming in the distance, me on my pony and my 
assistants walking at my side. There, with 
beaming countenances, were my two patients, 
my friends of three years ago. 

"We are all ready for you," said they. 
** Every one in the village has agreed to give up 
his idols, if you will put a teacher here to teach 
us how to follow Jesus." 

We preached to eager listeners, explaining the 
way of God more perfectly and prayed to Jesus 
to come and take possession of every heart. 
Soon a covenant was written out in their lan- 
guage and signed with his cross mark by every 
head of a house, for himself and family, they ab- 
juring heathenism, renouncing their idols, placing 
themselves under Christian instruction, promis- 
ing to observe the Sabbath, and to conform to 
the precepts of Christ so fast as they were taught 
them, and we promising, in turn, to place a 

67 



The Cobra's Den 

teacher there to instruct them all, to teach the 
children to read God's word for themselves, and 
to lead them in the Holy Way. 

After another prayer of consecration I had 
mounted my pony to return to our tent, for the 
heat was coming on. My assistants had started 
a shorter way, where the pony could not go, as 
I, sitting on my pony, had been saying a few last 
words. Starting on, my eye was attracted to 
the shrine, or little village temple under the other 
side of the Council-tree, where I saw half a 
dozen stone idols, great and small, standing on a 
platform at the inner end of the shrine. 

"What are you going to do with these idols 
now?" I asked, turning to the people. 

''Have we not renounced them? They are 
nothing to us any more." 

"But are you going to leave them standing 
there for ignorant people to worship as they pass 
by?" 

"What do you wish us to do? Would you 
like to take them away ? You are welcome to 
them. We don't want them any more." 

"I would like to take one of them," said I, 
thinking to test the people as to their giving 
them up, and wishing to send one to our sup- 
porters at home, to show what these poor 

68 



Surgeon's Knife Dethrones Hindu Idol 

people had actually been worshipping, and 
looked to see if I could call to one of my native 
assistants to take one of them. No one knows 
the dread these people have of their idols, their 
gods, and though they had renounced them, I 
did not like to put them to so severe a test, and 
so suddenly, as to ask one of them himself to do 
physical violence to the idols on the spot, though 
I knew that courage would come in time. See- 
ing me look for one of my people, and divining 
my intent, Ramudu, my old patient, stepped for- 
ward and said, '*Do you want one now? I'll 
bring out the chief Swami (God) and give you," 
and going and reaching in he shook the central 
and largest idol loose from its masonry setting, 
brought it out, and, as he reached it up to me on 
my pony, paused a moment and, looking at it, 
addressed it somewhat thus, speaking in his own 
language: 

''Well, old fellow! be off with you! We and 
our ancestors for a thousand years have feared 
and worshipped you. Now we have found a 
better God, and are done with you. Be off with 
you and a good riddance to us. Jesus is now 
our God and Saviour." So speaking he handed 
him up to me as I sat on my horse, and now that 
idol adds interest to a missionary museum in the 

59 



The Cobra's Den 

home land, as he sits among the dethroned dei- 
ties conquered by King Immanuel. 

When, after a few months of further instruc- 
tion, it was my privilege to baptise those people 
into the name of the Father and the Son and the 
Holy Ghost, I rejoiced greatly that they had, 
meantime, proved their faith by standing firm 
through the fiery trial of persecution which had 
burst upon them for deserting their ancient faith, 
and I thanked God that the surgeon's knife had 
proved in that case, as in others I know of, the 
effective instrument in dethroning some of India's 
so-called gods. 

Out of the more than 1,000,000 towns and 
villages in India, in, perhaps, 250,000 of them, 
through the agency of the surgeon's knife, the 
physician's prescription, the little village school 
established for adherents' children, the mission 
high school, the Christian college, the schools 
for Hindu girls, the Zenana workers, the Bible 
women, the colporteurs and the Christian preach- 
ers, from the missionary and native pastor to the 
catechist and reader, has the salvation of Jesus 
the Christ been made known, though as yet 
accepted in comparatively few of them. 

But for the 750,000 towns and villages in which 

60 



Surgeon's Knife Dethrones Hindu Idol 

no evangelistic work is going on, where rests the 
responsibility ? Where rests tlie responsibility 
for China and for all heathendom ? Where, but 
on that Church of God in Christian lands to 
whom was given the express order, ** Go ye into 
all the world and preach the gospel to every 
creature." Where, but on you, O individual 
Christian, on whom the obligation lies to go or 
send ? Each dollar that you give now may save 
a soul. Each $ioo may plant the gospel in one 
more village. 

For thine own salvation " How much owest 
thou thy Lord ? " Take thy bill and write 
quickly, and then to the extent of thine ability, 
if not of thy debt, join hands with Him, the 
Great Missionary, who left His home land for 
this heathen world, — who saved thee, — join 
hands with Him, thy Prince Immanuel, in prose- 
cuting that work which He came to inaugurate — 
the salvation of the whole world. Fill the treas- 
ury of thy Church's Board; send thy sons; send 
thy daughters, and in the Christians' home wear 
thou not the starless crown. 



61 



V 

YES OR NO? INSTRUCTIONS WANTED 

By the last mail I received an intimation that 
some persons in our home Church are not alto- 
gether pleased when news comes of accessions 
in our mission fields, for the reason that it costs 
to sustain the enlarged work. Some four months 
ago it was my privilege to send home news that 
several villages, or hamlets, in the region of 
Madanapalle had cast off their idols, renounced 
their false gods, and placed themselves under 
Christian instruction. 

Several schoolhouse-chapels were at once 
erected, costing as much as fifty dollars apiece. 
Some additional readers and teachers were em- 
ployed, drawing a salary of as much as four 
dollars and a half a month each, that the chil- 
dren might be taught by day, and the adults be 
gathered each evening and each Sunday, and in- 
structed in the way of the Lord more perfectly; 
and certain prudent heads were shaken, so I in- 
fer from what I have heard, by prudent people, 
who did not know whether our Church was 
prepared to receive such an increase to her work 
and her responsibilities. 

62 



The Cobra's Den 

Now I am in a quandary. Who will tell me 
what I am to do ? To-day I have received a 
written application from the inhabitants of four 
hamlets in another direction to be taken under 
Christian instruction. They promise to pitch 
their idols overboard; to cease working on the 
Sabbath ; to give up everything hostile to Chris- 
tianity; to live according to its holy precepts, so 
far as in them hes, and beg me to send some one 
to tell them what those precepts are. Shall I do 
it, or shall I not ? 

They are poor. So were those who came over 
five months ago, but they have most of them 
stood firm and have grown in grace. They have 
been abused; have been threatened; their work 
has been interfered with ; four of them in differ- 
ent villages have been assaulted and beaten, one 
of them so that it was feared for some hours that 
he would not survive, simply because they re- 
fused to abjure their faith in their new-found 
Saviour. And, on top of it all, these four hamlets 
ask me to take them under instruction and re- 
ceive them to the fellowship of such abuse. 

What answer shall I give them? Consider 
well before advising me; for it will cost money. 
It may interfere with the erection of a $100,000 
church in New York for me to spend fifty dollars 

63 



Yes, or No? Instructions Wanted 

in erecting a church for these inquirers in these 
new villages. It may interfere with the endow- 
ment of a $60,000 professorship at home if I 
spend seven dollars a month in supporting a 
catechist to show these seeking ones the way to 
heaven. It may complicate the arrangement for 
a I400 trip to the Yosemite Valley, or a I200 trip 
to the White Mountains, or a $1,000 trip to 
Europe next summer, if I ask one of the city 
merchants to increase his subscription by five 
dollars per month to support a school, in order 
that the children may be suffered to come unto 
Jesus. So would it not be better, on the whole, 
for me to tell this deputation that the Home 
Church cannot afford to have any more of them 
become Christians ? 

There was a time, I believe, when the Church 
really wished to establish and sustain missions in 
India and China and Japan. Is she frightened 
now that the child begins to grow ? And does 
she wish to starve her Eastern children to death, 
because, forsooth, it will take so much milk to 
rear them up to manhood? Does she wish to 
gain the credit of having missions in three great 
empires of the East, without bearing the burden 
of their support ? 

God forbid ; and yet the voice that speaks to 

64 



The Cobra's Den 

us month by month, through the columns of 
"Receipts for the Board of Foreign Missions," 
would almost lead a disinterested observer to 
form such a conclusion, and the retrenchments 
and curtailments that we on the ground have 
been compelled to make year by year leave us 
little spirit to rebut the charge. 

We go on with our itinerating; we preach the 
gospel of glad-tidings in the highways and by- 
ways. When those to whom we have preached 
come forward and say: "Sir, we are convinced 
of the truth of what you say; please receive us 
under instruction and train us for your heaven," 
shall we say, " Hold on, don't be too fast. The 
Home Church can't afford to have you believe 
quite so soon " ? 

Little does the church at home know the bur- 
den she is, and has been, putting on her mission- 
aries by her attitude of the past few years. We 
wish now to know what we are to do. Shall 
we gather in the fruit of what we sow, or shall 
we not? Shall we receive under instruction 
those who apply, or shall we tell them to go back 
to their idols and feed on ashes until the Home 
Church feels better able to enlarge its work ? We 
want, through the column of Receipts for the 
Foreign Board, an explicit answer — Yes or No. 

65 



VI 

THOSE TORN-UP GOSPELS 

. Vayalpad is the Taluk town of the Taluk, or 
county town of the county, of Va3^alpad, in 
India, i6o miles northwest of Madras. It is a 
town of not more than 6,000 or 7,000 inhabi- 
tants, but has been rather a wealthy place for 
its size, having a good many goldsmiths ply- 
ing their profitable trade. There is also a noted 
Hindu temple with a large number of Brahman 
priests attached; and more than forty villages, 
within a radius of four miles, cluster around it as 
a centre. It is thus a place of importance in that 
region. What its people do, the surrounding 
villagers are likely to follow. 

In July, 1865, three of us missionaries went 
there on a gospel-preaching and Bible-distribut- 
ing tour. Two years before I had gone up into 
that Telugu country, and established a new sta- 
tion at Madanapalle, the Taluk town of the ad- 
joining Taluk, and with my native assistants had 
been busy, in preaching the gospel and introduc- 
ing the Scriptures, as far as possible, in its multi- 

66 



Those Torn-Up Gospels 

tudinous villages. But now, anxious to carry the 
gospel into the adjacent Taluk, I had asked two 
other missionaries of our mission, with several 
native assistants to join me, that we might make 
a strong impression upon the people to whom 
we were bringing the gospel news for the first 
time. 

We pitched our tents in a grove just out of the 
town, which was built compactly, with houses 
joining one another, as in the crowded streets of 
a large city. 

The next morning at sunrise we went into the 
chief street to preach. The streets were neatly 
swept from house-wall to house-wall, for there 
are no sidewalks in their not over-broad streets. 
In front of each door the street was sprinkled 
with cow-dung water, which they use for purifi- 
cation, and white ornamental figures had been 
made on the ground, by the women of the house- 
hold allowing finely powdered lime to run through 
their fingers as they deftly moved their hands 
around, to form each her favorite design. 

Little was going on in the early morning as we 
went into the street, but the presence of several 
foreigners and their companions was soon noted, 
and when we took our stand, and in chorus sang 
a gospel song to one of their old familiar native 

67 



The Cobra's Den 

tunes, an audience soon filled the streets where 
we were. After reading a portion from the gos- 
pel of Luke in the Telugu language, one of the 
native preachers first addressed the audience, and 
one of us missionaries followed setting forth Jesus 
of Nazareth, of whom we had read in the gos- 
pel, as the Saviour of all men, of every land, of 
every language, of every race, if they will only be- 
lieve on Him, and accept His salvation as a free 
gift. The audience listened quietly, but with evi- 
dent questionings and incredulity. We offered our 
gospels and tracts gratuitously, but only a very few 
were accepted, and that with no eagerness. We 
bade our audience a polite farewell, and went back 
to our tents. That evening we went out preaching 
in some of the villages beyond the town, and on 
returning through the Bazaar street, just at dusk, 
we noticed bits of torn leaves of Scriptures and 
tracts scattered up and down the street. As we 
entered our tent one of my brother missionaries 
said to me in a wearied, somewhat dispirited 
tone, " What is the use of our doing this ? The 
people here have no desire to listen. They only 
tear up and throw away the Scriptures and tracts 
that we give them. Those books we gave this 
morning are all wasted." 
''Not so," said I, "some of the books have 

68 



Those Torn-Up Gospels 

been torn up, but it strikes me that only a few, 
and the fragments of them diligently scattered for 
the purpose of producing the impression that all 
have been destroyed. This is a part of my par- 
ish, and I am going to test this. Those torn bits 
will attract attention to the books. They may 
serve as seed corn. I shall watch." 

By eight o'clock the streets were deserted, and 
I sent one of our men out to gather up, by moon- 
light, sample bits of the torn leaves in all parts of 
the street. He brought them in and on a careful 
examination we found that they were all parts of 
the gospel of Luke, or of a large tract, explaining 
the gospels. One of each had evidently been 
torn up, and well scattered. 

Before moving our tent back into our own 
Taluk to carry on our touring there, we preached 
in thirty-seven of the villages of that group. 

It was four years before I could again get 
around to Vayalpad. During the interval we had 
preached in several thousand towns and villages 
in other directions. In a single year myself and 
three native assistants had visited i,o6i different 
villages, all within twenty miles of Madanapalle, 
and now we were able to pitch our camp again 
in the grove not far from the great temple at 
Vayalpad. 

69 



The Cobra's Den 

I went with my native assistants into the same 
street to preach. The street was filled with an 
audience. This time they listened closely, and 
discussed the points at issue with zeal. At the 
close we offered them the same gospels and 
tracts, but now on sale. We declined to give 
away any. A number of the more intelligent 
part of the audience produced their wallets and 
purchased. They came to our tent for further 
conversation, and bought more Scriptures, and 
when, after again preaching in the surrounding 
villages, we moved our camp we found that we 
had, on this visit, sold there 253 Scriptures and 
tracts. "That seed corn is sprouting," I said, and 
I thanked God and took courage. 

Where one missionary's field or parish is the 
size of the state of Connecticut, with a still larger 
population, it is impossible to traverse the whole 
ground often. It was now 1883. I had, mean- 
time, visited the place repeatedly, each time re- 
ceiving a more kindly welcome. The people of 
an adjoining hamlet of day labourers had given in 
their names renouncing heathenism, and repeat- 
edly asked to be taken under Christian instruction. 
I had at last sent a catechist there to instruct them. 
His coming was the occasion of a remarkable 
movement among the people of Vayalpad. It 

70 



Those Torn-Up Gospels 

reminded them of our previous visit; of the Di- 
vine message that we had delivered to them; of 
the Scriptures we had distributed. It set them 
talking of Christianity and of the Bible, and of 
the effect it had upon the lives of its adherents, 
and their earnest talking led them to form a sin- 
gular resolution. This resolution was embodied 
in a petition which they sent to me by a special 
messenger. The details of this petition and the 
action that followed are given in the following 
chapter. 



71 



VII 

THE HINDU judge's OPINION OF THE BIBLE 

It was in December, 1885, that I received the 
very singular petition referred to in the last 
chapter. It was signed by some of the most 
influential inhabitants of the Taluk town of 
Vayalpad. It asked that I should receive under 
my care the Anglo-Telugu school of 100 pupils 
which they had established the previous year, to 
educate their sons, and organize it as a mission 
school, introducing the Bible into all the classes 
as a Text-Book. Not one of the petitioners 
was a Christian. 

Much surprised at the tenor of the request, I 
went out there at once to meet the people, and 
see whether they were sincere in making the 
request, and whether the supporters of the 
school were unanimous in the matter. On my 
arrival a meeting of all those interested in the 
school was held. The request was publicly 
presented to me in the same terms, namely, 
that I would receive the school under my care 
and management, and would introduce the Bible 

72 



Hindu Judge's Opinion of the Bible 

as a Text-Book into each class, to be studied 
daily in English in the higher classes and in 
Telugu in the lower. 

The head master of the school, a Brahman, 
himself educated in a mission school, explained 
to those of the supporters of the school who had 
not been present before, the advantage of having 
the school under the charge of a missionary, and 
of studying the Bible, reminding them that he 
spoke from experience. 

He was followed by the District Munsif, or 
native judge of the district court, a native gen- 
tleman of excellent character and education. 
Though using English fluently, he spoke in 
Telugu, so as to be understood by all, speaking 
substantially as follows : 

"My friends, I was not educated in a mission 
school, but I have many friends who were, and 
who studied the Bible daily in school. I have 
witnessed its effects upon their lives. I have 
read the Bible myself privately a good deal. I 
have come to know the pure and beautiful 
system of morality it inculcates. My friends, 
there is nothing in our Vedas that can compare 
with it, as I well know from' careful examination. 
Let your sons study the Bible. They need not 
become Christians. There is no compulsion 

73 



The Cobra's Den 

about it. The missionaries never force any one. 
But if you want your sons to become noble, 
upright men, put this school under the charge 
of the missionary, and have the Bible taught in 
it daily. It will make your sons better men, and 
you will be happier parents. 

"My friends, I have but one son, as you know. 
On him all my hopes are centred. You know I 
am able to send him where I please for his 
education. But I want him to be a noble, 
earnest man. I have therefore sent him to the 
Madras Christian College, to be educated, and 
there he studies the Bible with the missionaries 
every day. This tells you what / think of the 
mission schools and of the Bible. I have done." 

By unanimous vote the school was put under 
the charge of our mission, and no lessons are 
studied with more fidelity than are the daily 
Bible lessons, under a Christian teacher. No 
examinations are more creditably passed than 
those on the Bible by those heathen boys. And 
now, in addition to their daily lessons, a purely 
voluntary Sunday-school of sixty lads and young 
men has been formed, who meet every Sabbath 
morning for the study of the deeper spiritual 
meaning of this word of God. God grant that 

they may get more good from the study of the 

74 



Hindu Judge's Opinion of the Bible 

Book than they expected when they asked that 
it be given them to study. 

Those torn-up gospels mentioned in the pre- 
ceding chapter have indeed borne a rich fruitage, 
for were they not the word of Him who said, 
** It shall not return unto Me void, but it shall 
prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." 



75 



VIII 

MARKETING THE BIBLE 

The missionary among the heathen who does 
not engage in, and foster Bible colportage is a 
misfit. As well sow the rice fields on the arid 
plains of India with no arrangements for their 
subsequent irrigation. Paul plants; Apollos 
waters; God gives the increase. If the ver- 
nacular preaching in the towns, and the villages, 
the highways and the byways is Paul, then col- 
portage, which leaves the divine word in the 
gospel and the tract is Apollos, left to water the 
seed the living voice has sown, and we may de- 
pend on God's giving the increase. 

We may not see it; we may never know it, 
but *'My word shall not return unto Me void," 
said one who fulfills His word. Many a soul 
will be found in glory from those dark lands of 
the earth whom no missionary, whom no other 
Christian has ever seen, brought there by some 
gospel or tract, scattered by some missionary or 
his colporteur; seed which they in their ignorance 
suppose to have been choked by the thorns, but 

76 




INDIAN BUFFALOES BATHING 




A HINDU STREET SCENE 



Marketing the Bible 

which the Divine Eye has seen to produce fruit, 
in spite of its thorny surroundings. 

Downright earnest effort on the part of a mis- 
sionary in doing Bible colportage work himself, 
as often as other duties will at all allow, and in 
keeping native colporteurs vigorously at work, 
stimulating them by his own methods and ex- 
ample, will royally pay him. 

What I mean can, perhaps, best be set forth 
by giving an illustration from my own ex- 
perience. 

More than thirty years ago I took a preaching 
and Bible distributing journey through regions up 
to that time never visited by a missionary, largely 
at the expense of the American Bible Society. 

My party consisted of four native assistants 
and myself, all of us preachers, all of us colpor- 
teurs. We started with two cart loads of Scrip- 
tures, Bibles, New Testaments, gospels, tracts, or 
booklets, explaining the gospels, and setting forth 
clearly the way of life, in the five languages we 
were to encounter, each of which could be used 
by some of us, for we could each of us preach in 
two or more, but chiefly in the Telugu language, 
for it was through the Telugu country that most 
of our journey led. 

We came, one day, more than 400 miles from 

77 



The Cobra's Den 

our starting-point, to the old capital of the an- 
cient Telugu empire, Warangal, which was in 
its glory when Columbus discovered America, 
containing then near 1,000,000 inhabitants, the 
city's walls being twenty miles in circuit. About 
the time of Columbus the Mohammedan invaders 
conquered the Telugu empire, and their capital, 
ere long, fell into ruin, although the old iron gates 
of the citadel were, when 1 visited it, still swing- 
ing in the gateway of the massive granite walls. 
Within the old city circuit are now eight de- 
tached towns, and villages, of more or less im- 
portance. 

We stopped there four days to preach and sell 
Scriptures and tracts. At sunrise each morning 
we took several boxes of books in a long, low- 
bodied open bandy, or cart, drawn by bullocks, 
and, mounting it ourselves, drove into the streets 
of one of those towns. Stopping in the centre 
of a street, and all standing up in the cart, we 
joined in singing a "Gospel Call," in one of the 
old Telugu melodies, weird and sweet, that have 
come down through a dozen generations. The 
words, in English, would read, "O, come, 
brothers, come and listen to the story of Jesus 
and His love. Come, for the dread day of death 
and the judgment are fast drawing nigh. Come, 

78 



Marketing the Bible 

for Jesus is ready to take away all your sins, and 
give you eternal life. Come, brothers, come, 
and listen to the story of Jesus and His love." 

An audience soon assembled. One of my as- 
sistants would read from one of the gospels, and 
explain it. Then I would preach, standing in the 
cart so as the better to be seen and heard by all the 
crowd, and often half a thousand people would 
gather round before we had done. 

After presenting as clearly and forcibly as I 

could God's plan of salvation through Jesus Christ 

His own Son, who came and suffered for us, I 

said to them, "Brothers! We have come a long 

way to tell you of this Divine Redeemer. We 

are to go on farther shortly. We have brought 

with us the history of the Redeemer, the gospels, 

and the whole 'True Veda,' the Bible, and little 

books explaining this 'new way of life.' We 

will sell them to you for a very small price, that 

you may keep them to read after we have gone 

on; for surely you will want to know how to 

obtain the love, the favor, the salvation of this 

Jesus the Saviour, the remission of sins, the 

eternal life that He, and He alone can give. Here 

is the story of that Redeemer, written by Luke, 

the physician. The price is only one dub, (about 

one cent). Who will have one ?" 

79 



The Cobra's Den 

Out come the little wallets; up are passed the 
dubs ; out are passed the copies of Luke's gospel. 
Down from the cart spring three of the native as- 
sistants, with each a package of the gospels in 
his arms, and work their way through the crowd 
selling as they go, while we sell on the cart. 
After some twenty minutes I take up a tract of 
the size of a gospel, explaining the way of salva- 
tion. Reading a page from it and explaining it, 
I offer that for sale. Up come more dubs, and 
out go the tracts. Then the Bible is read from, 
and once more the plan of salvation is set forth, 
and the Bible is offered for sale for fifty dubs, 
and then the New Testament for twenty, and 
each of the other gospels and tracts, in turn, is 
read from and sold. 

When all had purchased that wished to in that 
street, we would drive into another and repeat 
the process and so again until ten or eleven 
o'clock, when we would return to our camp and 
rest until four p. m. Then we would start in an- 
other village, or another part of the town. Four 
days of this work resulted, as my records show, 
in the disposal of 1,225 books, chiefly gospels 
and large tracts, but including nine Bibles, and 
six New Testaments, and we had preached the 
gospel to forty different audiences. 

80 



Marketing the Bible 

Twenty-eight years passed. There came to 
my house at Madanapalle a man of twenty-five 
or thirty years of age, of the Merchant Caste, 
with a singular story. He was from the suburb 
of Warangal in which we had sold the largest 
number of books. He may have been an 
infant at the time we were there. He may 
not have been born. He did not know his ex- 
act age. 

His father had died when he was a child. He 
was brought up by his father's brother as a son. 
When some twenty years of age he was one day 
rummaging in a cupboard of his uncle's house, 
when he came upon an old book. It was called 
the Kotia Nibandhana, the New Testament. He 
asked his uncle about it. 

"O, it's a book I bought many years ago." 

"Well, what is it about, uncle?" 

" They said, when I bought it, that it told of a 
new way of getting rid of sin." 

**Have you read it.?" 

*' No. After I had bought it I showed it to our 

family priest, and he persuaded me not to read 

it. You had better not read it either. Our 

fathers' way is good enough for me, and for you 

too. Put it back where you found it." 

The young man put it back. But every now 

81 



The Cobra's Den 

and then, secretly at first, he took it out and read 
parts of it. He became interested. He became 
absorbed. He would talk with his friends about 
that divine Guru, Y^su Kristu, and wanted to 
know where he could learn more about him. 
His uncle and friends became alarmed. They 
would not have him embrace a new religion. 
They tore up and burned the New Testament. 
They raised a sufficient purse, and bade him go 
on a pilgrimage, first to Benares, and. thence to 
the other holy places of the Hindus, to reestab- 
lish his faith in Hinduism. For two years he had 
thus wandered, visiting all the most sacred places 
of the Hindus. 

At last he came to the Holy Mountain of Tiru- 
pati, with its splendid temples on its summit, 
only sixty miles from my station, and worshipped 
there. His mind became more and more dissatis- 
fied with the Hinduism he saw exemplified at the 
successive holy shrines. He asked some of the 
other pilgrims if they had ever heard of people 
who were proclaiming a divine redeemer whom 
they called Yesu Kristu. At last he found a man 
who said, "Yes, there are some people of that 
sort sixty miles west of here, at Madanapalle, 
who go all around the country preaching about 

Yesu Kristu, and trying to make us give up our 

83 



Marketing the Bible 

gods, and these our holy shrines. There don't 
many people believe them. You keep clear of 
them. Our fathers' gods are good enough for us 
their children. Hari! Hari! Vishnu 1 Jaya! " 
(To Vishnu be the victory! ) 

Secretly by night he slipped away. He came 
to Madanapalle. For several days he stopped in 
a Native Rest House, while reconnoitring the 
ground, and making enquiries about these strange 
people and their teachings. Finally he fell in 
with one of the very men who had stood with 
me on the cart, and sold the Scriptures at War- 
angal, and with him came to me. Earnestly did 
he study God's Word for some weeks, under 
our guidance, and then asked to be baptized 
into the name of that Yesu Kristu he had so 
strangely learned about, and come to love and 
trust. 

As I pronounced the Triune Name over him, in 
the holy ordinance I thanked God for this new 
evidence of the verity of His promise, '* My word 
shall not return unto Me void." 

Scores of cases of known fruitage from the 
scattering of the seed in the pages of the printed 
truth come crowding into my mind, emphasising 
the importance of earnestly conducted Bible 

colportage in missionary work, but room fails me 

83 



The Cobra's Den 

to give them here; nor need I. One apple from 
a tree gives the flavor of them all. If we press 
on with all vigor in this blessed work, we are 
well assured that " in due season we shall reap, 
if we faint not." 



84 



IX 

A MEDICO-EVANGELISTIC TOUR 

The field which I am supposed to cultivate, 
with Madanapalle as its headquarters, comprises 
the subdivision of the Cuddapah district, /'. e.,, 
that portion of the district which is under the 
jurisdiction of the sub-collector and joint magis- 
trate, resident at Madanapalle. It comprises four 
Taluks or counties, being about lOO miles in 
length, by about fifty in breadth. My work is 
mostly, of course, in the Madanapalle Taluk, and 
the adjacent one of Vayalpad. I have also made 
two tours in the northeastern Taluk of Rayach6ti, 
but have never before worked in this northwest 
Taluk, Kadiri, the nearest point of which is thirty 
miles, and the farthest eighty miles, from Madan- 
apalle. 

Having returned to Madanapalle from a previ- 
ous tour on the first of December, 1 started, on 
the morning of the fourth, with my native help- 
ers, for a month's campaign in the Kadiri Taluk. 
I brought with me three large and well-filled 
medicine chests, which I have prepared for just 

85 



The Cobra's Den 

this work. One contains eighty-five vials of 
from one-half ounce to eight ounces in size, filled 
with the stronger and more expensive prepara- 
tions; the other two containing more bulky arti- 
cles. The three together contain about 30,400 
doses of medicine. I took with me, also, one of 
the pupil assistants from our Madanapalle dipen- 
sary, to help me in dispensing the medicines. 

Thus equipped, we moved on, by short 
stages from Madanapalle to Kadiri, the head- 
quarters, or county town of the Taluk. During 
one night's journey we had three unbridged 
rivers to cross, and, in one of these the cart con- 
taining the medicines was upset, falling partly in 
the water. It fell down the bank so heavily, that 
I feared great destruction amongst the medicines, 
but it proved that only four bottles, containing 
some ten or fifteen rupees' worth of medicine, 
were broken. 

Kadiri is a large, old heathen town, with ex- 
tensive temples, and hundreds of Brahman priests. 
We were too tired with our morning's march 
and work, to go out preaching the evening of the 
day we arrived, but sunrise the next morning 
found us where four streets meet in the heart of 
the town, with a very large crowd of curious 
listeners around us. This is the first time that a 

86 



A Medico-Evangelistic Tour 

missionary, or a European physician, has been in 
this region, and they were not a little curious to 
know what it meant. Mounted on the platform 
of a temple portico, I could be seen and heard by 
the crowd that extended down the four streets, 
while I laid before them, the true and only way 
of salvation, through a crucified Redeemer. 
After preaching, I remained, for twenty minutes, 
to assist the catechists in selling books, and then 
left them to continue selling, while I returned to 
my tent to attend to patients. After I left, the 
helpers sold about loo books. 

The first day or two, the people came rather 
cautiously for treatment. I had intimated, in the 
Bazaar street, that I would treat any who would 
come, but they did not understand this gratuitous 
treatment of the sick, so they came tentatively, 
as it were, the first day. Three or four Brah- 
mans, half a dozen merchants, as many artisans, 
and a number of farmers came dropping in dur- 
ing the day, but, as each applicant for treatment 
brought several friends with him, we had good 
opportunities of preaching, to group after group, 
all day. The next day, more came, and to-day, 
the third day, I have had between sixty and 
seventy patients, including every class from the 

highest to the lowest. Doubtless, the numbers 

87 



The Cobra's Den 

will increase while I remain here. We go out 
regularly, morning and evening, preaching in the 
town and surrounding villages, but are able to 
continue our Evangelistic work through the day, 
by means of the medical attractions to draw peo- 
ple together. 

Monday evening. Yesterday was a busy day. 
Instead of going out preaching in the morning, I 
began my medical work at sunrise, so as to get 
through with all important cases by nine o'clock, 
and be ready for morning service in my tent. 
There are, at present, three gentlemen in the 
revenue service of government, temporarily en- 
camped with their families, near here, and two 
other Europeans in government employ, also in 
tents, near by. Among their servants and office 
people, there are several native Christians, and 
they all joined in the request, that I would give 
them a Telugu service, in my tent, at ten a. m. 
So, setting aside the medicine chests, tables, etc., 
and throwing out the sides of the tent, to make 
it as large as possible, we all met, and I preached 
from Gal. v. 13, and conducted a regular Sabbath 
service in Telugu, probably the first ever held in 
the Kadiri Taluk. 

Bazaar day is on Sunday here, so, at two p. M., 
we went down to the market tope, and 

88 



A Medico-Evangelistic Tour 

preached to large crowds, under the shade of 
the trees; and, at five p. m., I rode out between 
two and three miles, to the camp of the senior 
officer, where all the Europeans had assembled, 
and gave them an English service. I was very 
tired when the day's work was over. 

To-day, as I expected, larger numbers of pa- 
tients have come in. I began as soon as I re- 
turned from preaching this morning, and resting 
a couple of hours at noon, finished at five p. m., 
having treated io6 patients. They are beginning 
to come in now from the outlying villages, ten 
or thirteen miles off. I expect a busy day to- 
morrow. 

Tannakal, Friday evening. I found that there 
was both mission and medical business, which 
called for my presence in Madanapalle on Wed- 
nesday. Under ordinary circumstances, I should 
have left Kadiri on Monday night or Tuesday 
morning, and made two journeys of the dis- 
tance, fifty-one miles, but so many were apply- 
ing for treatment in Kadiri, that I could not find 
it in my heart to run off on Tuesday morning. 
So, borrowing a couple of ponies, and sending 
my own, and one of them on in advance, I 
waited until I had treated 123 patients, and then 
started, and made one pull of the journey to 

89 



The Cobra's Den 

Madanapalle, reaching there horseback about 
midnight. I was pretty well shaken with the 
long ride, one of the ponies I had borrowed be- 
ing a hard rider, and the roads very rough. Be- 
ing in Madanapalle on Wednesday, gave me the 
opportunity to deliver the Wednesday evening 
Biblical lecture to educated Hindus, in the "Free 
Reading Room." When I am near enough, I 
often ride in for that, as I always have a good 
audience of attentive listeners. Finishing up my 
work in Madanapalle, I came back here, thirty- 
six miles, yesterday, my tents having, in the 
meantime, been moved from Kadiri, to this 
place. 

The first group of sick that appeared this morn- 
ing, before sunrise, was from ten miles beyond 
Kadiri. By the time they had heard of my be- 
ing in Kadiri, and come there, I had left, so they 
followed me on here, fifteen miles, and another 
company came in from Kadiri at noon. I have 
had some very interesting audiences to preach to 
to-day, and have enjoyed my work. 

Saturday. I went out preaching this morning, 
and was back at my medical work by 7:30 a. m., 
and worked on, stopping an hour for breakfast, 
until the market had begun, (this being market 
day,) when I went out, with my native helpers, 

90 



A Medico-Evangelistic Tour 

and preached to different groups until four p. m. 
Had a discussion with some Brahmans, who 
wanted to prove to the people that their way 
was the best, after all, lest they should be left 
without followers and without support. After 
the bazaar was over, I came back and treated a 
few more patients at my tent. 

Sunday. Blessed day of rest, but it has 
proved to me a blessed day of work, instead 
of rest, work for the Master, who hesitated not 
to heal on the Sabbath day. I have had to-day 
1 10 patients from some twenty different villages, 
some of them fifteen and twenty miles off, vil- 
lages among the hills to the west, that we could 
never hope to visit, and where, perhaps, the 
message of salvation would never have been 
heard by the present generation, if it had not 
been for some of them finding their way here 
for medical treatment. We have not gone to 
the villages preaching to-day, but have confined 
ourselves to preaching to the successive groups 
of patients, and many have taken back with them 
Scripture portions and tracts, that may guide 
them to the port of peace. 

Chikatimanupalle, Christmas evening. This 
has proved one of the hardest day's work I have 
had. Off among the hills, nine miles northeast 

91 



The Cobra's Den 

of Tannakal, is the little market town of Kokanti. 
To-day was the market day, so I sent off two of 
the native helpers, at daylight, to that place, with 
a supply of tracts and books, promising to follow 
them myself, in time for the bazaar. My tent 
was to be moved on to this place, seven miles, 
to-day. This is also nine miles from Kokanti, it 
being at the apex of a triangle, with a base of 
seven miles on the main road, and my tent was 
to be moved along this base, while I went on to 
the market at Kokanti. 

I had told the people, at Tannakal, that I would 
treat all who came, up till nine o'clock. Know- 
ing I was going to leave, patients poured in early, 
so that, at sunrise, when I began to work, there 
was already quite a crowd, and although, after I 
had preached, I went on examining and prescrib- 
ing for patients, as fast as possible, having two 
assistants to dispense the medicine, the people 
came faster than I could attend to them, and, at 
eight o'clock, there was a crowd of 200 around 
my tent. I stopped and preached again, and 
then resumed my work. They were evidently 
afraid that I would leave before I had treated all, 
and so pressed upon one another, each trying to 
get in first, that I had to put up stakes in front, 
with but one entrance, and place a guard to let in 

92 



A Medico-Evangelistic Tour 

but one at a time. By 1 1 : 45, however, I had 
got through with them all, 124 patients, the rest 
being friends accompanying them. 

I then had breakfast, and at 12:15 mounted my 
pony, and rode off, nine miles over the hills, to 
Kokanti, reaching that place at two o'clock. I 
found the catechists already at work in the mar- 
ket, and, joining them, I, myself, preached to 
seven different audiences, aiding in selling books 
between the addresses. I continued working 
thus, in the bazaar, till 4:20, when I mounted my 
pony, and started for this place, Chikatimanu- 
palle, nine miles. The sun was very hot, and 
the wind was so high that I could not hold an 
umbrella, and, as the sun shone on my back, I 
felt as though it were blistered. By the time I 
had gone a little way, what with my 124 pa- 
tients, and preaching in the morning, my ride to 
Kokanti in the sun, and seven addresses to open- 
air audiences in the bazaar, I felt pretty well done 
up, so much so, that, before I had gone many 
miles, I got off my pony, and lay down by the 
roadside to rest, before I could summon up reso- 
lution to proceed. However, I got here about 
dark, and found my dinner waiting for me, my 
carts having come up some two hours before. 

After dinner, and a good cup of tea, I felt re- 

93 



The Cobra's Den 

freshed, and so ends my Christmas day. Christ- 
mas holidays surely! But how could one better 
keep the day, or better please Him whose birth 
is to-day celebrated, than by making His name 
and birth and saving power known to hundreds 
of those, who had never before even heard of 
Him ? O may He give me grace and strength, 
to enable me to make the most of this glorious 
opportunity of making His salvation known. 
Combining the medical with Evangelistic work 
on tours, makes hard work for the missionary, 
but it pays. 

Kandukur, Wednesday. I came on here yes- 
terday. This is a large market town, and is 
noted as being the worst fever region in all the 
district. The drinking water is very bad, and 
almost every other man you meet, has either 
fever, or its result "ague cake," or enlarged 
spleen. The fevers here are mostly of the 
quartan type, coming on every fourth day. 
There are many here who have had it for more 
than twelve months with the omission of scarcely 
a single turn. It is a very persistent form of 
fever, and prevails all over the region in which I 
have been touring, but this is its headquarters. 
I have had hundreds of cases of it to treat at my 

dispensary at Madanapalle, and I have found, 

94 



A Medico-Evangelistic Tour 

that almost the only way to conquer it, is to give 
hypodermic injections of quinine. This method 
of administration has been pronounced by many 
to be unsafe, unscientific, and barbarous, but I 
am able to point to nearly i,ooo cases, treated by 
the hypodermic injection of quinine within the 
last five or six years, and my experience proves 
it to be safe, eminently successful, and more per- 
manent in its results, than when the quinine is 
taken by the mouth. I find, moreover, that it 
saves fully three-fourths of the quinine, /. e., it re- 
quires less than one-fourth the quantity, when 
injected under the skin, than when swallowed to 
produce a permanent cure. The natives see its 
good results, and have great faith in it. A group 
of men came to me to-day, having followed me 
all the way from Kadiri, to have their **arms 
pricked," as they call it, for quartan fever, and 
they reported, that not a patient whose arm I 
had ''pricked" when there, has had any return 
of the fever. 

I usually inject four grains, dissolved in twenty 
drops of distilled water, by the aid of hydro- 
chloric acid. 1 have injected twenty cases to-day, 
and upward of 200 during the last six weeks. 
On another tour I injected seventy in one day. 

We have had, to-day, large audiences of Brah- 

95 



The Cobra's Den 

mans and merchants to preach to, and have 
found good sale for our books. 

Tippasamudram. Plenty of work again to- 
day. Before leaving Kandukur at 12:30, I had 
treated sixty-seven patients, including one im- 
portant surgical operation. Riding five miles, I 
came to a market tope, and spent the time till 
four p. M., preaching to successive audiences, and 
then came on here, three miles farther, reaching 
this place before my tent came up from Kandu- 
kur. However, it soon arrived, and I got it 
pitched soon after dark, and have now, 8:30 
p. M., just had my dinner, and must have prayers 
with my native helpers, and then be off to bed. 
Judging from the number of men who came to 
me in the market to-day, asking for advice, I 
shall have a busy day to-morrow. 

Friday. On rising this morning, before sun- 
rise, I found a crowd of people already waiting 
for me. They had followed me from Kadiri, 
being too late for me at each of my previous en- 
campments. Soon another company came up 
from Tannakal, and another from Chikatimanu- 
palle, and still another, from a village close to 
Kandukur. Before I had done with these, the 
people of the town began to pour in, and, ex- 
cept while at breakfast, I have hardly had any 



A Medico-Evangelistic Tour 

intermission all day long. As I was closing up 
at night, another group of six patients came up, 
dusty and foot-sore, having travelled forty miles 
to find me, or from ten miles beyond Kadiri. 
Four of them were quartan fever cases. 

I have been in this fever region so long now, 
and have had so much work to do in the sun, 
that I have had a chill and fever myself, almost 
every day of late. I have taken large doses of 
quinine, but without effect, and have now given 
myself a hypodermic injection, and hope to have 
no farther trouble. I have had a great many 
cases of blindness brought to me to-day. I re- 
stored sight to two blind people lately, by oper- 
ating for cataract, and, hearing of this, there 
have overtaken me to-day, quite a number of 
cases of blindness, some of them perfectly hope- 
less from staphyloma, and other causes. A few, 
however, are cases of simple cataract, and I shall 
get the men to come to my hospital at Madan- 
apalle next week for operation. I have had io8 
patients to-day. 

Kotta Kota, Saturday evening. I rode on here 
at daylight this morning, and preached in the 
main street of the town on my arrival. There 
does not seem to be so much sickness here, as at 
my former camps, still, as many patients as I 

97 



The Cobra's Den 

could well attend to, have come in during the 
day. 

Sunday. To-day is Bazaar day here, and an 
incident has occurred which has interested and 
encouraged us. We were out as far as this a 
year ago, and were here on Bazaar day, and sold 
nearly 200 Scriptures and tracts. To-day, as 
Catechist Souri had just concluded preaching to 
his first audience, a man of high caste stepped 
out from the crowd and said, "Yes, this is the 
true religion; last year I heard these people 
preach here, and bought one of their ' Spiritual 
Teachings,' and the study of that has made me 
cease worshipping idols, and 1 now pray only to 
Jesus Christ; just see what a beautiful prayer 
there is at the end of the book," and he repeated it 
from memory, and explained sentence by sen- 
tence. "I now see," he said, " what a beautiful 
and soul-satisfying prayer that is, I shall pray it 
every day till I die, and I advise all of you to buy 
these books and judge for yourselves." The 
once preaching in the bazaar last year, and this 
one little book purchased there, were all the 
means of grace this man had enjoyed, but he 
seemed fully in earnest, travelling the heavenly 
road. 

Monday evening. New Year's day. Home 

98 



A Medico-Evangelistic Tour 

again! I rode in this morning from our last 
camp, thirty-two miles off, preaching once on 
the way. This ends our tour of twenty-nine 
days. We have, while out, visited nine market 
towns on their Bazaar day, and preached and 
sold Scriptures and books to audiences assembled 
from hundreds of villages. We have preached 
in seventy-eight different villages, and have sold 
1,013 Scriptures, books, and tracts. 

During this tour, I have treated 713 different 
patients, giving each patient an average of five 
days' treatment. These patients came from 130 
towns and villages, and to all the Word of Life 
o' was preached. The 1,013 books sold to the pa- 
,• tients and in the weekly markets, have, at the 
least calculation, found their way to 100 villages; 
may the life-giving Spirit accompany these 
books, and cause, that each being read, under- 
stood and believed, may bring forth fruit unto 
everlasting life. 1 have given this chapter of ex- 
perience to show how we combine medical, 
evangelistic and colporteur work. Such work 
is not in vain. 



99 



X 

HINDUISM AS IT IS 

Modern Hinduism, the Hinduism held and 
practiced by the people of India for the last 2,000 
years, and held by them still, is not at all the re- 
ligion of the Vedas. That was essentially a pure 
monotheism. 

The Vedas, dating back from near the time of 
Moses, before all Noachian tradition had vanished 
from among men, contain in the main true ideas 
of God and man and sin and sacrifice. They 
teach of one Supreme Being, the creator, pre- 
server and governor of all; that He is pure and 
holy; that man is in a state of sin, not at peace 
with holy God; that sinful man can have no 
union with sinless God until and unless sin is in 
some way expiated. But they fail to show how 
this expiation is to be accomplished, and leave 
the devotee groping in uncertainty and dread. 

The Aryans brought these monotheistic Vedas 

with them when they migrated into North India. 

But there soon arose another series of religious 

books, the Upanishads, commentaries on the 

100 



J 



Hinduism as It Is 

Vedas, rituals, all those books known to the 
Hindus as ''The Shastras." These are theoretic- 
ally held to be of only secondary authority to the 
Vedas; but, in reality, it is they, with the still 
later books, "The Puranas," that teach the reli- 
gion, and control the lives of the Hindus of the 
present age. 

With them first came in the idea of the Hindu 
Triad, and the host of minor gods; of Nirvana, 
or final absorption; of caste distinctions and 
caste observance. Modern polytheism and idol- 
atry; pilgrimages to holy places; desert wander- 
ings and asceticism; physical tortures; infant 
marriages; virgin widowhood; suttee, or the 
burning of a widow on the funeral pyre of her 
departed lord, all crept in under the shadow of 
these Shastras and Puranas. 

Hinduism, since before the time of Christ, 
holds to The Trimurti, that is, the Hindu Triad, 
Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. Brahma being the 
Creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Siva the de- 
stroyer. Brahma, their books tell us, committed 
incest; was guilty of such lustful conduct that he 
was cursed to the effect that no temple should 
ever be built in his honour, and no knee should 
ever bow to him in worship, and to this day, al- 
though India is filled with Hindu temples, there 

101 



The Cobra's Den 

is nowhere one erected to Brahma, and he has no 
worshippers. 

The Hindus are nearly equally divided between 
the worshippers of Vishnu, or Vaishnavites and 
the worshippers of Siva, or Saivites. One party, 
with the trident on their foreheads, painted in 
two nearly perpendicular lines of white, con- 
verging toward the bridge of the nose, with a 
perpendicular line of red between them, range 
themselves under Vishnu as the Supreme God. 
The others, with three horizontal lines of sandal- 
wood ashes smeared on their foreheads, worship 
Siva as the Supreme. There is a cordial animos- 
ity between these two sects, breaking out often 
into abuse and quarrels, and even sometimes riots. 

The wife of Vishnu is Lakshmi, the goddess of 
beauty and fortune, and their son is Kama, the 
India Cupid, the God of love. The monkey is 
sacred to Vishnu. His temples swarm with 
them, and they are cared for, and bountifully fed, 
as the descendants and present representatives of 
Hanuman, the Monkey-God who assisted Rama, 
one of Vishnu's incarnations, in recovering his 
captured wife, Siti, from Ravana, giant king of 
Ceylon, who had stolen her. All these are de- 
voutly worshipped by the Vaishnavites, or fol- 
lowers of Vishnu. 

102 



Hinduism as It Is 

The wife of Siva is Parvati, and their two sons 
are Vighneswara or Ganesa, the remover of ob- 
stacles, or the God of all new undertakings, and 
Subhramania, the God of war. 

The son Ganesa, is practically, far more wor- 
shipped than the father and mother. He is rep- 
resented with the head and trunk of an ele- 
phant, and pot-bellied. He must be worshipped 
on the beginning of any and every new under- 
taking, and for the removal of all obstacles. His 
hideous image, chiseled in stone, carved in wood 
and in ivory, cast in copper, or brass, is found 
everywhere; granite ones by the roadside for 
convenience, and in temples; wood and metal 
ones in every Saivite's house. 

Inferior to these are multitudes of deities who 
are supposed to attend to specific affairs of 
family life and business undertakings of every 
kind, as birth, betrothal, marriage, sickness, 
death, and hosts more of still inferior gods and 
goddesses, which must be worshipped and pro- 
pitiated if the worshipper is to have a quiet and 
happy life. Indeed their books teach that there 
are 330,000,000 of gods, male and female, named 
and unnamed. Of these the Hindus stand in 
continual fear, and they must be continually pro- 
pitiated, by libations, offerings, and sacrifices. 

103 



The Cobra's Den 

The temples, the roadside shrines, the groves, 
the highways and byways, the market-places and 
bazaars, and the houses, family rooms, bedrooms 
and kitchens, swarm with idols representing 
these gods, great and small, reminding them of 
the acts of worship they must perform. 

The character of these multitudinous gods of 
the Hindus, from Brahma down, will not bear 
inspection. The morals of a people are never 
higher than those of the gods they worship. 
This accounts for the lax morality so sadly in 
evidence among the people of India. 

Polygamy is recognized in their system, and 
practiced among the Telugus as among others of 
the Hindus. There are no "old bachelors" 
among them. They believe that their after 
condition depends in a degree on their having 
male offspring to perform their funeral obsequies 
and subsequent ceremonies. They have a proverb 
which says, " Get a good wife if you can; if not, 
get a bad one; marry you must." 

If after marriage they have no children, or if 

they have only girls, it is, according to their 

teachings, incumbent on them to marry another 

wife. I have knowm a Hindu who, with four 

wives, had only daughters. He married a fifth 

in hope of having sons. 

104 



Hinduism as It Is 

Hindus often look upon plurality of wives, 
however, in a somewhat different light. A 
Hindu gentleman of high position, who had 
been a patient of mine, came in from his distant 
home to express his thanks to me for his restored 
health, and to make me a friendly visit. After 
talking on various matters of interest he asked 
how many wives I had. "Only one, most 
assuredly," was my reply. 

*'What, sir," said he, "can a benevolent gen- 
tleman like yourself, so continually doing good 
to all around you, rest satisfied with throwing 
your protecting mantle over only one poor un- 
protected female? How can you regard that 
as doing your full duty toward the weaker 
sex ? " 

Boys are regarded by them as a blessing, and 
girls as a curse. If a boy is born they think the 
deity is pleased and confers a favour; if a girl, it is 
a sign of the divine displeasure. If a birth is 
announced in a friend's house, ere they send any 
messages they must ascertain whether it is a case 
calling for congratulations, a boy, or condolence, 
a girl. When our sixth son was born, and we 
had no daughter, a Hindu Rajah, whose do- 
minions lay not far from my station, an old 
patient of mine, came in to congratulate me over 

105 



The Cobra's Den 

the birth of "six sons, without a daughter to 
spoil it all." 

I told him that both his mother and myself 
were much disappointed that it was not a 
daughter. He looked and spoke as though he 
considered me daft for having such a wish. 

"But, your highness," said I, "where would 
you and I be were it not for our mothers .?" 

"Ah, sir," said he, "there are sinners enough 
in the world so that there will be no lack of 
women. There is no necessity for the righteous 
to have daughters." 

The Hindu caste system is nowhere indicated 
in the Vedas. It arose after the migration of the 
Aryans into India. Yet there is not a part of 
their religion which, for these past twenty 
centuries, has held such an iron grip upon the 
people. For it is a religious, not a social, dis- 
tinction. The progenitors of each caste they 
hold to have been a separate creation on the part 
of Brahma; the Brahmans being created from 
his head; the Kshatryas, warriors, from his 
shoulders; the Vaishyas, merchants and artisans, 
from his loins; the Sudras, farmers, from his 
thighs, and labourers from his feet. There are 
subdivisions of these castes covering every trade 
and profession. 

106 



Hinduism as It Is 

A man is born into a caste; he never can 
ascend. A merchant's son must be a merchant. 
The son of one of the blacksmith caste, a black- 
smith. It stunts progress. It prevents true 
brotherly feeling. Under it a Brahman may 
lightly say, "stand by thyself, I am holier than 
thou." Its provisions are cast-iron, and on 
observing them one's future depends. I have 
known of a Brahman who died in sight of food 
placed there for his sustenance, because, for- 
sooth, that food had been cooked by one of 
lower caste. "Better die," said he, "and gain 
heaven, than eat that food and live, and lose 
caste, and lose heaven." 

It is one of our greatest obstacles in missionary 
work. The Brahmans would rather see a son 
die than become a Christian and disgrace their 
caste. 

Transmigration of souls is also a doctrine of 
modern Hinduism nowhere indicated in the 
Vedas. It teaches that when one dies, his soul 
will simply enter another body, superior or 
inferior to his former condition according as to 
whether merit or demerit has preponderated in 
this life. Each one hopes that his soul may, in 
the next birth, be born a Brahman. Each one 
fears that it may be born in one of lower caste, 

107 



The Cobra's Den 

or as an animal or reptile. They hold that this 
transmigration will go on until finally they shall, 
in some way, have acquired so much merit that 
the soul may be absorbed into that of the Deity, 
and their individual existence cease. This is the 
Nirvana, or final absorption, which is the highest 
state of future bliss to which Hinduism points its 
most zealous devotees. 

The stolid indifference with which most Hindus 
meet death, is explained by this belief, that at 
death they are simply passing one milestone in 
their almost endless series of existences, and that 
there is as good a chance in the next birth as in 
that which they are leaving. 

Those who posed as representatives of Hindu- 
ism at the "Parliament of Religions," portrayed 
a kind of ancient Vedic Hinduism, revised to suit 
their own ideas, and make it palatable to persons 
of Western culture. Culling its choicest, and 
giving a Christian colouring to many of its con- 
ceptions, they evolved and held up to the ad- 
miration of their credulous auditors as Hinduism 
a system as different, nay far more different from 
the real Hinduism of India's people since the days 
of Malachi than Christianity is from Mormonism. 

The native newspapers of India sneer at the 

utterances of the Chicago representatives of Hin- 

108 



Hinduism as It Is 

duism, as utterly untrue pictures of Hinduism as 
it exists. Indeed " The Hindu Nation,'' an ortlio- 
dox leading Hindu newspaper, says: 

"The pure and undefiled Hinduism which 
Swami Vivekananda preached has no existence 
to-day; has had no existence for centuries." 
And " The Reis and Rayyet," another representa- 
tive Hindu paper, adds, ''In fact abomination 
worship is the main ingredient of modern Hin- 
duism." 

And yet the mass of the Hindus suppose that 
the Hinduism of to-day has come down to them 
from the Vedas, for not one man in ten thousand 
in India really knows what the Vedas teach, but 
are simply satisfied to take their religion as it 
comes to them from their immediate fathers. 

In spite, however, of the trammels of their 
superstition and the blind teachings of their 
Shastras, many Hindus do have a sense of the 
burden of sin, and a desire for its expiation, and | 

a longing for conformity to, and communion 
with a personal God and father, and do have an 
undefined hope of a future world of bliss. 

This we see indicated in the writings of their 
sages and poets of all the ages. This we find 
now and then in the thoughtful Hindus of the 
present day. This gives us an invaluable lever- 

109 



The Cobra's Den 

age in gaining access to their hearts and present- 
ing Jesus Christ as the all-sufficient Saviour from 
sin, its pollution, its penalty; as the one who can 
lift us up to become sons of God. 



110 



XI 

"LORD GANESA" and LITTLE RAMASWAMI 

I SAW a sight one day that made my heart ache, 
ache for the boys and girls of India, and which I 
desire to picture to the boys and girls of the dear 
home lands, to see if they will not lend a vigor- 
ous hand in soon making such things impossible 
in all of idol-ridden India. 

I was walking down the main street of the great 
heathen city of Madras toward the temple of the 
god Ganesa. It stood right on the street, and 
was not larger inside than a hall bedroom, for the 
Hindus do not assemble in these wayside temples 
for worship, but go in, one or two at a time, to 
present their offerings to the god of the temple. 

At the farther end of the temple, on a stone 
platform as high as a table, and facing the wide- 
open front doors, was the god Ganesa. He has 
an elephant's head and trunk, and a huge belly, 
and was chiselled out of stone, sitting on a large 
stone rat, and as tall as a man. He was very 
black and shiny from the ghee, or melted butter, 

poured over his head by the worshippers, to make 

111 



The Cobra's Den 

him feel good-natured and so grant their requests, 
and had garlands of white flowers around his 
neck, placed there by some worshipper. 

As I neared the temple I came upon a Hindu 
mother taking her little son Ramaswami, to make 
his first offering to the god Ganesa in that tem- 
ple. On his arms were hanging garlands of flow- 
ers and in his hands was incense to offer. He 
was chatting merrily, in Tamil, with his mother, 
who had hold of his hand and was telling him 
how he must go into the temple, making his 
salaams and showing his offerings, and then 
place them in the god's lap with his own hands, 
so that the god would always be his friend and 
not harm him. 

As they came in front of the wide-open door, 
little Ramaswami saw the huge black idol, with 
his eyes painted to look fierce, his tusks white 
and sticking out toward him, his tongue fiery red, 
and his black trunk raised up to one side as if to 
strike. With a scream he pulled his hand away 
from his mother's and sprang to one side, out of 
sight of the monster, and stood trembling with 
fright. His mother, laughing at his terror, reas- 
sured him, saying, "The god won't strike you; 
he is a good god and likes to have little boys wor- 
ship him. Come and lay your offerings in his 

112 




A HINDU FUNERAL SCENE 




A TEMPLE ELEPHANT 



" Lord Ganesa " and Little Ramaswami 

lap, Ramaswami, don't be afraid;" and led him 
again up to the side of the door. 

As soon as he came in front of the horrid idol 
he screamed again, and tearing away from his 
mother, ran down the street toward his home. 
The mother, with a hard laugh, overtook him 
half a block away, seized him and half dragged 
him back to the temple, and said, 

'^You little fool! Is your father's son going 
to be a coward? The god won't strike you. 
He won't harm you. Don't you see, he is made 
of stone and can't move; he can't hurt you. 
Come along, you little imp, and lay your flowers 
and incense in his lap;" and pushing the scream- 
ing child before her, with one hand firmly grasp- 
ing each shoulder, she forced him, in terror as he 
was, up onto the steps before the idol and made 
him lay the offerings in the lap of the god. 

Immediately he had done this, he twisted him- 
self from her grasp, and, without making any 
salaams to the god, dashed past me down the 
street for his home, still screaming with fright, 
while his mother, laughing, slowly followed 
him. 

I lingered after they had gone, thinking of the 

mothers and the children in my native land, and 

I said, "O, if all the mothers of Christendom 

113 



The Cobra's Den 

would be as zealous in bringing their children 
to the blessed Jesus as are these heathen mothers 
in making their children worship their repellant 
idols, how many more strong, living Christian 
characters there would be, and what an added 
force would they constitute in bringing on speed- 
ily that day when 'the idols shall be utterly 
abolished,' and when 'Jesus shall reign from sea 
to sea.' " 



114 



XII 

A brahman's testimony 

"He was a Christian, sir, and I believe he 
spoke the truth," said the Brahman magistrate. 

It was in 1869. I had been away from my 
station for some weeks, sowing seed in the out- 
lying regions. Shortly after my return the su- 
perior magistrate of the district, a cultured Eng- 
lish gentleman, came to call upon me one day 
and in the course of the conversation, he said, 
"I have something to tell you, which I think 
will please you." "Have you," said I, "then 
please tell it." 

He told me of a case that had been before the 
court of the Brahman magistrate of the town 
during my absence which was this: 

A poor man of good caste had borrowed 
money of the soucars, or rich, high caste money- 
lenders, in the chief Bazaar street of the town. 
The money was due, and the poor man came to 
tell them he had failed to raise the money and 
asked for an extension. They refused to give it, 
taunted him with his poverty and said he made 

U5 



The Cobra's Den 

no effort to raise the money to pay them, and 
that he must in some way, raise the money and 
pay them immediately. He in turn complained 
of them as oppressors. 

They flew into a rage, pounced upon him, 
gave him a beating, and knocked him over on 
a heap of granite, inflicting a number of wounds 
and injuries. They were somewhat startled to 
see the wounds as evidence of their assault, and 
withdrew to their banking bazaar, to consult 
what to do. The wounded man, saying that he 
would complain against them for assault, went 
to the house of a Vahil, or native lawyer, to get 
him to formulate the complaint in the magis- 
trate's court. The assailants rushed directly to 
the magistrate, and clamorously laid charges 
against the injured man, that he had made an 
attack upon them, and that simply in defending 
themselves they had chanced to inflict wounds 
upon him, and demanded the arrest of the in- 
jured man. 

As in Solomon's time, ''on the side of the 

oppressors there was power," the injured man 

was arrested and charged with assault upon the 

soucars. The case came before the Brahman 

magistrate referred to above for trial. Each 

party was ordered to produce its witnesses, 

116 



A Brahman's Testimony 

The prosecuting party, the soucars, all ap- 
peared and told the same story; they had sum- 
moned a large number of witnesses who swore 
that this poor man had violently assaulted them, 
and that they had simply acted in self-defence, 
and wounded him. 

No one dared to appear in behalf of the poor 
wounded man; one or two were summoned, 
who had been within sight and hearing when 
the assault occurred, but fearing the vengeance of 
the powerful clique on the other side, refused to 
testify, declaring they knew nothing of the case. 
The simple story of the injured man, that he 
had himself been violently attacked, beaten and 
wounded by these men, and that they simply 
to shield themselves had brought this charge 
against him was unsupported by any testimony. 
Here in India a powerful party can hire any 
number of Hindu witnesses for a quarter of a 
dollar each, to swear to anything they wish to 
have proven, but there is no sense of justice 
which compels a man to testify for an innocent 
or injured party, when he thinks he will, either 
socially or otherwise, be the loser thereby. 

The Brahman magistrate knew not what to 
think; he strongly suspected that the charge 
made by the soucars was a false one, but the 

117 



The Cobra's Den 

sworn testimony in their behalf was very strong; 
he knew not quite what course to take. On a 
little reflection he turned to a police constable 
who appeared on the scene just at the conclusion 
of the assault, asking if he knew of any one else 
who had seen the assault and could testify to 
what had really occurred. 

"Yes, sir," said he, "the catechist of the 
American mission was standing in the main 
street, at the head of this Bazaar street, and ap- 
peared to have seen all that went on." His 
house was near at hand; the magistrate sum- 
moned him, and told him he wished his testi- 
mony as to what had really occurred. 

He was put under oath, upon the Bible, and 
said that as he was passing by in the main street 
on his way to the hospital that morning, to ob- 
tain medicine for his sick wife, he had heard an 
altercation and stopping to see what it meant, he 
had seen these three soucars spring from their 
seat in the veranda of their bazaar, upon this 
man, who now stood as defendant, and give 
him a beating and knock him violently on to 
an adjacent heap of stones, and told in detail all 
that had passed. He was cross-questioned, but 
his simple statement remained unbroken. The 

magistrate sent to the hospital and found that at 

118 



A Brahman's Testimony 

the hour named the catechist had appeared at 
the hospital to obtain medicine as he had stated. 

The case against the poor man was dismissed. 
The prosecutors were charged with assault upon 
the poor man, convicted and sentenced to pun- 
ishment. 

" The records of the case in full," said the Eng- 
lish magistrate, ** came before me for perusal and 
for revision, if I saw cause. I read the case with 
all the testimony very carefully. The next day 
the Brahman magistrate called and I said to him, 
* How is it that with so many witnesses testify- 
ing so strongly in favour of the prosecution, and 
very little more than this one witness for the de- 
fence, you dismiss their case, and proceed against 
the accusers ? ' The native magistrate replied, 
' These men seemed to me to be bearing false 
witness. Their testimony looked as though they 
had all been instructed just what to say. I be- 
lieved they were hired to swear to what they 
did. But, this man was a Christian, and I be- 
lieve he spoke the truth.' And in looking over 
the case," said the English magistrate, "I think 
that the native magistrate was right, and the 
conviction of the accusers stands." 

" I told you this," said the superior magistrate, 
''for I think it will encourage you in your work, 

119 



The Cobra's Den 

to know that even non-Christian officials regard 
the Christians as worthy of belief because they 
are Christians." 

It did encourage me, and it encourages me 
more as I look over the country and see the 
growing feeling among all classes, that the reli- 
gion of Jesus does elevate those who truly em- 
brace it, to a higher level of morality, and a no- 
bler stand in all that is good. 

There are many now everywhere who are 
ready to reiterate the Brahman's declaration, 
'* He was a Christian and I believe he spoke the 
truth." 



120 



XIII 

A DAYBREAK AUDIENCE AND A CHASE FOR A TIGER 

It was three weeks after the angry mob had 
heard and melted at the Story of The Cross. We, 
myself and four native assistants, had come on 
more than a hundred miles farther north in the 
kingdom of Hyderabad. Yesterday had occurred 
the incidents given in " The Man with the Won- 
derful Books " as recounted in the preceding vol- 
ume. We had, on that afternoon preached for 
eight hours, from two to ten p. m., to an ever- 
growing audience of people hastily gathered 
from many villages. One of us at a time had 
gone away to rest, and eat, while the others 
were setting forth anew, and with more and 
more incidents, the Hfe and work and power and 
mercy of "the God Man " who had appeared on 
earth for man's salvation, and supplying them 
with "The History of the Divine Guru "—the gos- 
pels—and with booklets explaining them, which 
they had eagerly purchased for one dub each. 
At ten o'clock we had told them that we must lie 
down and rest now as we were very weary with 

121 



The Cobra's Den 

our long journey of the morning, and with our 
continued preaching of the afternoon and evening, 
and must now get some sleep, for we must be 
again on our way at daylight, and they reluc- 
tantly withdrew. 

On our arrival at near noon, they had taken us 
to a small, granite built Hindu temple in a tope, 
or grove, fronting their village, and bidden us 
put up in that, for if those wonderful books they 
had before obtained and read were true, they did 
not want this temple and these gods any more. 
They had themselves assisted in taking our things 
into the temple, placing my folding traveller's 
cot where, as I lay resting while my breakfast 
was preparing, I could reach out my hand and lay 
it on the chief idol and say, Yes, this is one of 
those of which it is said, in my Book of Instruc- 
tions, "The idols He shall utterly abolish." We 
had not therefore pitched our tents nor unloaded 
them from the carts. 

At eleven o'clock, when the last of the people 
had gone, and we had had our evening prayers, 
we lay down to sleep in the portico of the temple, 
for it was too hot and close to sleep inside. Too 
much interested in and excited by the events of 
the preceding day, I slept but little. As my eyes 
opened, along through the night watches, to- 

122 



A Chase for a Tiger 

ward the streets of the village, I could see un- 
usual lights burning, way on until dawn. At the 
first break of day we arose and put our beds, 
luggage and boxes of books upon our carts, to 
start upon another day's march and another day's 
preaching. Until a fortnight before we had been 
wont to start considerably earlier, but since we 
entered this jungly, sparsely populated region, so 
infested with ravenous beasts, prudence had re- 
quired that we wait until the daylight had driven 
them back to their lairs. 

Just as we were starting, a grc^p of people 
from the village came up, saying, "Sirs, this is 
such strange news, and so good if true, that we 
have been reading these books all night to see if 
there were anything in them which we did not 
understand, so that we could ask your ex- 
planation before you went on, for we may never 
see a missionary again." And one of them 
opened a gospel, with leaves turned down here 
and there, and began asking questions, while all 
listened eagerly for the reply. Seeing that it 
would take some time to answer all their ques- 
tions, and thinking that as the sun was now soon 
to rise, all danger from ravenous beasts was past, 
I proposed to my native associates to go on with 
the equipment, as we wished to reach the next 

123 



The Cobra's Den 

village, some five miles ahead, before the people 
had gone out to the fields to work, and saying 
that I would answer these questions and then 
canter on rapidly and overtake them. They 
went on. I turned to answer the questions, but 
so many leaves were turned down, and so ear- 
nestly did they ask question after question, that it 
was fully three-quarters of an hour before I could 
get away. 

The last question they asked was one I could 
not answer. They had, after many questions 
about incidents in the gospels, and about the 
character and the claims of the God Man, asked 
as to where it was that He became man, and was 
born a babe, and whether He were a white man, 
or like them. I had told them that in a land mid- 
way between their country and the land of the 
white Christians, and among Asiatic people, 
much like themselves, with a similar dress and 
customs and of a complexion between theirs and 
mine, among a people especially prepared of the 
great God for His advent, this Son of God had 
taken on human form for our redemption. They 
seemed pleased that He was more like them than 
we foreigners, and asked, 

** How long ago did this happen ? " 1 told them 
the number of centuries, and how He had com- 

124 



A Chase for a Tiger 

manded His disciples to go into all the world and 
preach this gospel to every creature and how, in 
process of time, the good news had reached the 
western lands, and they all had become Chris- 
tians, and how now, because His love burned in 
their hearts, they had sent me and many others 
to come to their land and learn their language 
and give them the glad news. 

"Sir, did you say that this Yesu Kristu (Jesus 
Christ) came into the world and did all this more 
than 1, 800 years ago ? " 

"Yes," said I. 

"Sir, if this be true why have you Christians 
not told us of it before?" I could not answer 
that question. I wonder if any one who reads 
this can answer it. 

At last bidding them a loving farewell and 
commending them to Him of whom so late they 
had heard, I mounted my horse and hastened to 
follow my people. 

There were no roads in that region. We had 
guides to show us the most feasible path from 
village to village. For parts of our journey we 
had low narrow carts with wheels of solid wood 
cut from the trunk of a large tree, and with buf- 
faloes to draw them. In other places everything 
had to be carried on the heads of coolies. Here 

1^5 



The Cobra's Den 

we had carts. The guides were conducting the 
party along the sandy, dry bed of a crooked little 
stream on the upper banks of which the next 
village was built. I struck the stream and can- 
tered up it to overtake our party. As usual I kept 
a sharp watch of the path and of the bushes at 
the sides. 

I had not gone a quarter of a mile before I 
caught sight of the tracks of a very large tiger, 
the largest tiger tracks I had ever seen. We 
had been in the tiger jungle now for two 
weeks. On the path over which we had passed 
the preceding day seven people had recently 
been killed and eaten by these " Man Eaters " as 
tigers that have tasted human blood are called. 
We had kept blazing camp-fires around our tent 
by night for ten days. But on a bright day, 
especially a bright morning, the tigers usually 
keep in the jungle, coming out by day when it is 
cloudy or toward nightfall. The sun was now 
up and shining brilliantly. What could this 
mean ? I sprang from my horse and kneeled 
down to examine the tracks and see whether 
they had been made before or after our party had 
passed. There they were, planted squarely over 
the track of the last cart, and evidently following 
it. 

1^6 



A Chase for a Tiger 

The mystery was explained, for, along by the 
side of the big tracks, I now found the small 
tracks of a tiger cub. It was an old mother 
tiger, who, hampered with the care of her cub, 
had not been able to get her prey during the 
night and who, in spite of the sun, was now out 
searching for breakfast for herself and child. 
She was following the carts, waiting for a 
chance to spring. The tigers of these jungles 
never spring into a crowd of people. They lurk 
and wait until one falls in the rear or goes to one 
side and then spring upon him. I saw at once 
the danger in which my native assistants walk- 
ing with the carts were placed. So long as they 
kept together and close by the carts they were 
pretty safe. Should one of them stop to quench 
his thirst at a little rocky pool in the side of the 
river, or for any other purpose. Mistress Tiger 
would be upon him, and the little one would 
have its first quaff of Christian preacher's blood. 

Springing onto my pony I struck the spurs into 
his side and dashed forward furiously. I always 
carried with me, in the jungle, a fourteen inch 
navy revolver loaded with rifle balls. I had 
practiced until I could bring down a squirrel or a 
crow with it. I knew I might not kill a tiger, 
but with accurate shooting I might blind or dis- 

127 



The Cobra's Den 

able it, if no more, and at all events I must share 
the danger whatever it be, with my native asso- 
ciates. Could I reach them before the spring 
were made I might avert the danger. On I 
dashed for one mile. The tracks were still there. 
From my unusual use of the spurs my faithful 
horse saw there was something wrong and be- 
came excited. The second mile was covered 
with leaps and bounds with the pistol ready 
cocked in my right hand and my eye watching 
every bush and every rod of the river, we went 
flying over the third mile. In my anxiety to 
reach my men in time to warn and save them I 
could scarcely breathe. I knew 1 must be near- 
ing them. The tracks big and little were still 
there. 

Suddenly a sharp turn in the river brought 
the carts into sight moving along peacefully, 
and I could see the four native preachers, and 
the cook and the tent lascar walking along 
together, close by the carts. I knew they were 
safe. I had reined up my horse so they should 
not see me. I looked and the tracks had disap- 
peared. Just before the bend I had seen them. 
The tiger had doubtless been lurking there. As 
it had heard the furious clatter of my horse's 

shoes on the gravel, as I turned the preceding 

12a 



A Chase for a Tiger 

bend only a few rods back, it had doubtless 
sprang with its cub, behind the bush on the jut- 
ting corner, which was so near as to brush m}' 
stirrup as I passed. And very likely its breath 
had fallen on me as I flew by at too rapid a gait 
for it to spring on me. 

Keeping just far enough back not to attract 
the attention of the party in front and watching 
the jungle intently on both sides of the stream to 
see if the tiger should again appear, I lingered in 
the rear for some twenty minutes for my horse 
to cool down, for though a bay horse he was 
white with foam when I passed the tiger bend, 
and I knew that, if I joined the party in that con- 
dition, apprehension would be excited, and ques- 
tions asked which it would be difficult for me to 
parry, for I did not want them then to know 
what a narrow escape they had had, as we still 
had 100 miles of this tiger jungle before us. 
Presently joining them I began at once to teli 
them what an interesting time I had had with 
the people of the last village, after they left, and 
what earnest questions they asked and so kept 
on talking until we reached the next village and 
were absorbed again in the work of the Master. 

They never knew, until we had reached home 
nearly four months later, of their danger and de- 

129 



The Cobra's Den 

liverance that morning, nor of several other dan- 
gers known only to myself, through which they 
passed unharmed. How appropriate sounded 
the ninety-first psalm that night at our evening 
prayers in our tent, for once again we had felt 
the presence of the '' Lo, I am with you." 



130 



XIV 

THE SPOTTED TIGER FOILED 

My camp was pitched in a valley between 
mountains towering up 4,000 feet above the sea, 
and 1,700 feet above my tent. I had been visit- 
ing, instructing, and encouraging the little Chris- 
tian congregation there, and preaching in all the 
surrounding towns and villages for several days. 
It was necessary to move camp that day to an- 
other cluster of Christian villages on the other 
side of the mountain, many miles around by a 
tortuous route through the valleys. I had much 
writing to do, and did not wish to spend the 
time for a circuitous journey, so despatched my 
tent and camp equipage in the early morning, to 
be pitched in the new place, and sent word to 
the people of that cluster of villages that I would 
hold a meeting in the central village that evening 
at dusk. My pony was to meet me at the east 
foot of the mountain to take me three miles to 
my new camp. 

Spending a good part of the day in the little 
village schoolhouse, quietly writing letters, I 

131 



The Cobra's Den 

walked up the mountain-side in the afternoon by 
a footpath that I knew. Halfway up I stopped 
to rest under a banyan-tree, or jungle fig-tree, 
where, a year before, a native farmer, running 
down the path, had come upon an old she-bear 
and her cub, under this tree, eating the wild figs. 
The old bear, thinking he was rushing for her 
cub, sprang upon him, hugged him, and badly 
mangled his right arm until her cub had vanished 
in the bushes, when she left him and followed 
her cub. The man was brought into my hos- 
pital, and for many weeks it was a question 
whether he would ever regain the use of his 
right arm. He finally did, however, and when 
the English judge of the district organised a hunt 
for that bear, in which I joined, he was there to 
show us where the tussle had taken place, and 
help us find his old enemy. 

There are many wild beasts inhabiting these 
mountain jungles: wild boar, deer, Indian elk, 
hyenas, jackals, wolves, an occasional striped 
tiger, and more spotted tigers. 

The spotted tigers have spots like a leopard, 
but are not leopards, for they have claws like a 
tiger and cannot climb trees as a leopard can. In 
size they are between the royal tiger and the 
leopard. In disposition and habits they are 

132 



The Spotted Tiger Foiled 

tigers and they have a tiger's strength. A friend 
of mine, from an opposite hill, saw one of them 
spring upon a small horse, kill it, suck its blood, 
and then drag it to its lair in the mountain re- 
cess. The spotted tigers do far more damage in 
our region than the striped, as they are much 
more numerous. If one gets a taste of human 
flesh nothing else will satisfy it; but such diet 
soon makes it mangy, and shortens its life. 

The government pays a reward for the killing 
of all ravenous beasts, and especially for those 
that are known to have killed human beings. 
The skins are delivered to the government offi- 
cial who pays the reward, and were at that time 
periodically sold at auction. At such a sale, 
which I attended and made some purchases, the 
skin of one spotted tiger was sold, which was 
certified to have killed and eaten nine men, 
women and children. Another had killed seven; 
another five; another four, and another two. 

We usually carry arms through these mountain 
jungles, but that day I had none. I had made 
the ascent of 1,700 feet and, walking along the 
west slope of the summit for a quarter of a mile, 
I had crossed over to the east side of the rocky 

crest. 
It was now one hour before sundown, of a 

133 



The Cobra's Den 

cloudy, drizzly afternoon. I had my double um- 
brella, black inside and white outside, for fending 
off both sun and rain, but had closed it over my 
hand, without clasping it, to go through a nar- 
row opening in the bushes. I had crossed a lit- 
tle open grass-plot of a few rods, and was just 
entering a narrow footpath through the mountain 
jungle, that would take me down to the east foot 
of the mountain, where I was to meet my pony. 

Suddenly a spotted tiger sprang into the path, 
between the bushes, and disputed passage. I 
saw at once what he wanted; only great hunger 
impels these tigers to come out during the day; 
he had had no breakfast, and wanted missionary 
meat for supper. I did not wish him to have it: 
I had an appointment, for that evening with the 
people of three villages, and wished to keep it. 
He stood in the only path through that dense 
mountain jungle, glaring at me. I eyed him 
equally intently, and, gaining his eye, held it 
while I formed my plan. 

It is always best if a scrimmage is to take place 
to be the attacking party. My old grandmother 
used to teach me that everything would come in 
use within seven years, if you only kept it. 
When I was a boy I had gone out among an In- 
dian tribe in Michigan, and learned their war- 

134 



The Spotted Tiger Foiled 

whoop. I had kept it for thrice seven years, but 
it proved trebly serviceable then. When my 
plan of attack was formed, springing forward 
toward the tiger I raised this war-whoop, and at 
the same time suddenly opened my double um- 
brella. 

What it was that could so suddenly change a 
perpendicular dark figure into a circular white 
object, and at the same time emit such an un- 
earthly yell, the tiger did not know. He stood 
his ground, however, until I dashed forward and, 
suddenly shutting my umbrella, raised it to strike 
him over the head. It seemed instantly to occur 
to him that I was the more dangerous animal of 
the two, and that one of us had better run ; as I 
did not, he did. Springing aside, over a bush, 
into the open ground, he made for the crest of 
the hill which I had just passed. The crest con- 
sisted of granite slabs and masses, thrown up 
perpendicularly by some convulsion of nature. 
From a crevice of these there had grown a ban- 
yan-tree whose branches spread out over their 
tops. Between the leaves and the rocks, in one 
place, I could see the sky through, in a circle as 
large as a bicycle wheel. 

For this the tiger made. His spring was the 
neatest specimen of animal motion I had ever 



135 



The Cobra's Den 

seen. His forepaws were stretched straight out 
and he had his nose between them. His hind 
feet were stretched equally straight, and between 
them his tail. Straight as an arrow he went 
through that opening. I knew that about twenty 
feet down on the other side he would strike on 
grassy ground, and that that slope led down to a 
little stream, which my path again crossed less 
than a quarter of a mile below. Wishing to 
make the subjugation complete, I scrambled up 
to this open place and, looking through the leaves 
at the side of the opening, I saw the tiger trotting 
down the slope, but looking around every now 
and then, evidently wondering whether he had 
done a wise thing in running away. 

Putting my head with its big, white, sun hat 
into the opening I once more raised the war- 
whoop. Down he dashed again with impetu- 
osity. Withdrawing my head until he slackened 
his pace, I repeated the operation, and on he 
dashed, and so continued, until I had seen him 
cross the stream, and go up into the woods on 
the opposite side of the valley. Then, feeling 
sure that I would see no more of him that day, I 
turned and wended my way down three miles 
to the foot of the hill, mounted my pony and 
kept my appointment. 

136 



The Spotted Tiger Foiled 

I am thankful to say that such incidents are 
not common in our preaching tours. I have 
never known of a missionary being seriously in- 
jured by ravenous beasts or venomous reptiles. 
But such an incident forcibly reminds us of the 
protection promised in the last few verses of the 
gospels of Matthew and Mark, in connection 
with the giving of the Great Commission, and 
that promise is wonderfully fulfilled. 



137 



XV 

THE HEAT IN INDIA : HOW I KEEP MY STUDY COOL 

"The thermometer is 102° with us. How is 
it with you ? " says a letter lying before me. An- 
other says: ** Thermometer 107° in my office all 
day, and 97° in my house all night. How are 
you standing it.?" And the paper to-day says : 
"Thermometer in the shade averaged ioi>^°, 
during the heat of the day, all last week in 
Madras, going as high as 108° one day." 

Now, what am I to do ? It is only the 28th of 
April, and I have my heaviest literary work, in 
the translating of the Bible, to do between now 
and July. Above 95° the brain refuses to work 
vigorously, and, more than that, my old friend, 
the jungle fever, seizes those times for his visits. 
If I can manage to pull the thermometer down 
ten degrees, I can keep the fever off, and keep my 
brain in a working condition. I have had to 
make a diligent study of this problem, and have 
met with some success. It may be interesting to 
others to know what means I take. 

We are in latitude 13° north, or 800 miles 

138 



How I Keep My Study Cool 

further south than the southern end of Florida. 
Our ''hot season" begins in March, and ends in 
October, though we have some relief during 
July and August, when the sun is north of us. 
March is hot, April is hotter, and May is scorch- 
ing. September, and part of October, too, are 
bhstering. I have seen the thermometer at 103° 
on the 15th of October. It pays us, therefore, to 
give our attention to keeping cool here, as much 
as it does you to keeping warm in the winter in 
America. And those of us who have close 
literary work to do must give special attention 
to it. 

My house is, India fashion, of one-story, but is 
smaller and lower than Europeans' houses usually 
are in this country. It consists of a row of rooms 
twelve feet wide, stretching on one after another, 
and all opening on a veranda in front. My study 
is the south end of the house. It is twelve by 
ten feet. Two ends and one side are covered 
with books. In the middle of each end is a door. 
The south side has a window, and my large 
study-table standing against the wall. The 
study-table ends against one set of book 
shelves and has another set on it, so that I can 
reach 300 volumes without leaving my chair. It 
has slides which pull out so as almost to enclose 

139 



The Cobra's Den 

my chair, so that I can have fifteen volumes open 
under my eye as I sit in my study-chair, which 
stands thus almost in the centre of the room and 
directly between the east and west doors. 

Outside of the west door is a little flat-roof 
bathroom, with, however, a door opening out- 
doors from that, on the west side, so that there 
is a clear sweep for the wind through from east 
to west and from west to east. The roof, only 
eight feet above my head as I sit, is of tiles, rest- 
ing on palmyra rafters. We have no plastered 
ceilings here, but, to keep the heat from striking 
through the tiles on our heads, we have sheeting 
sewed together and stretched across where a 
ceiling should be. This we take down and wash, 
from time to time, in place of white-washing. 

The low, tiled roof, however, lets the heat 
through unmercifully. So I have put up pillars 
a foot high on the eaves and the ridge, and, 
placing bamboos on them, have made a thick 
thatch roof, which not only covers the tile roof 
but comes down, making a veranda ten feet 
wide all around, thus keeping the sun off the 
walls. There is thus a foot of air always circu- 
lating between the two roofs, and that helps a 
good deal to keep my study from being heated 
by the sun. 

140 



How I Keep My Study Cool 

" How do I cool the air in the study ?" That 
is the best of it. We take the root of the kuskus, 
an aromatic plant, whose root, when washed and 
prepared, looks not unlike fine oat straw, with a 
refreshing odour when wet, and braid this into a 
screen a little larger than the door before which 
it is to be hung. It is fastened to the door- 
frame at the top, and tied out two feet at the 
bottom so as to be slanting. If this can in any 
way be kept moist, the intensely dry air at this 
season, in passing through it, sucks up the 
moisture very rapidly, and the process of evap- 
oration cools the air some ten or twelve degrees. 
I have one of these over my eastern door, and 
one over the western, so that, which ever way 
the wind blows from, it must pass through one 
of these "kuskus tatties," as we call them. To 
keep them wet I contrived some years ago a self- 
tipping trough, which is hung on a pivot at each 
end just above the " tatty." 

The trough is a V, with one lip shorter and 
more perpendicular, and the other longer and 
running out more horizontally. Against the 
wall, over one end of this, is suspended a square 
tub, with a faucet which allows the water to 
trickle into the trough. The water trickling into 
the trough rises slowly, spreading out on the 

141 



The Cobra's Den 

more horizontal lip of the trough until that 
becomes the heaviest, and over it tips, with a 
splash that sends the water all over the slanting 
tatty. 

I turn the faucet to let the water run faster or 
slower according to the dryness of the atmos- 
phere. Some days it must tip once a minute to 
keep the tatty wet. To-day, as I sit writing, it 
tips only once in three minutes, as the air is not 
so dry. It takes only twelve to fifteen gallons of 
water to keep one going all day, and that, in a 
dry day, will reduce the temperature of the room 
from ten to twelve degrees, and the whole thing 
is exceedingly inexpensive. Two dollars covers 
the outlay for the two doors. But wait a mo- 
ment, while I take my douche, for my head is 
feeling oppressed; the wind has lulled, and the 
air is not so cool as it was half an hour ago. 

There, I have had my head douche, and my 
brain is relieved again. It has taken me one 
minute, but the time is not lost. Some of these 
hot days I could not get on without it and do 
any considerable mental work. "What is this 
douche ? " I will tell you. Hanging up over the 
bathtub, in my bathroom, is a porous water jar, 
made of clay and baked without glazing, and 
holding about four gallons. The water oozes 

142 



How I Keep My Study Cool 

through all its pores, and the evaporation from 
the entire external surface cools the water to 
some fifteen to twenty degrees below the sur- 
rounding atmosphere. I have just tried the ther- 
mometer in it. It stands at 74°, which is ten 
degrees cooler than the water was when drawn 
from the well and put in it this morning. Over 
the edge of this water jar — or pitcher, as it is 
called in the Bible — hangs a bent tube syphon. 
I bend my head over the tub and under the 
syphon, and start the water. It runs, cool and 
refreshing, on to the back of the head and neck, 
cooling the brain and shriveling up the congested 
blood-vessels, and giving immense relief. My 
hair I keep shingled to about half an inch in 
length, and this retains considerable moisture to 
evaporate in the next half hour or so and keep 
up the cooling process. I come back and sit 
down in my punka chair, and my head feels 
almost cold for a little time, and I begin to think 
of icebergs. 

My punka chair is a comfort. I found that in 
my Bible translation work, where I have to have 
so many versions, ancient and Oriental, and so 
many dictionaries and books of reference open, 
that I could not get on at all with an ordinary 
India punka, which hangs from the ceiling, is 

143 



The Cobra's Den 

pulled by a coolie outside, by a rope running 
, through the wall, and stirs all the air in the 
room, blowing over the pages of the books, and 
fluttering the papers on one's table. So some 
years ago I devised a little punka to be attached 
to an ordinary cane-seat rocking-chair, so that a 
slight motion of the chair keeps the punka in 
motion directly over one's head. As I sit up 
straight in the chair, the punka-frill just touches 
my hair as it swings back and forth. It cools 
the head and does not disturb the books and 
papers, and costs nothing to work. 

If the hair is kept moist, its cooling effect is 
marvellous, and the motion of the chair is so 
slight, that I write with ease, with my paper 
lying on the table, as I now am doing, and the 
punka in full sv^ing. 

With these contrivances I fight the hot weather 
through the season, and manage to do a fair 
amount of work. Without them I would be 
utterly prostrated with such work. It is the 
hottest hour of the day now, but I am holding 
the thermometer on my study-table below 90° 
and intend to continue to do so "all summer." 



144 



XVI 

ODDITIES OF TRAVEL IN INDIA 

'*BoY, have you put my valise and bag in the 
coach?" "Yes, sir, done put, sir/' "Are the 
mattresses and pillows in?" "Yes, sir." "And 
the luncheon box?" "Yes, sir." "And my 
sun umbrella, and revolver, and pith hat, and 
boots?" "All done put, sir." 

The "boy" is a grey-haired man, but that 
makes no difference; for the general servant, 
who does the work of a butler, in India is called 
"boy," even though he be a Methusaleh. It is 
his business to see that everything is put in the 
coach, ready for a journey, but it does not do to 
trust him too confidingly, or you will find, after 
you are well on your journey, that he has forgot- 
ten some essential thing. So you must yourself 
ask after each thing you wish to take. 

" Have the bullocks and driver come ?" " Yes, 
sir, done hitched to the coach." "Are you sure 
the order for posting bullocks was sent on all 
right?" "Yes, sir, I took the order to the tah- 
sildar myself, and while I was there he started a 
peon on ahead with it, sir." 

X45 



The Cobra's Den 

There are 12,000 miles of railways in India, 
but India is 3,000 miles long, and over 1,500 
broad in places, and there is no railway station 
within twenty miles of one-twentieth of the 
population as yet. Many important towns are 
still fifty, or 100 miles distant from any railway. 

I am just off for a journey of 400 miles, to get 
a little breathing spell on one of the mountain 
ranges in the Madras presidency, and have to 
travel sixty miles to the nearest railway station. 
For such trips we have to indent on the all-en- 
during bullocks of the country. Horses, in South 
India, are too expensive a luxury for long jour- 
neys. The climate is against them. Good horses 
have to be imported, and, like other foreigners, 
they easily succumb to the heat. We have to 
keep them for use in the towns, and about our 
daily work, but they are very rarely used for long 
journeys in the Madras presidency. Palanquins 
were formerly much used, but with the good 
military roads which the British government in 
India have made through the country, they have 
been mostly replaced by wheeled vehicles. Each 
European resident is expected to keep his own 
travelling-coach, and, whenever he wishes to 
take a journey, he sends word beforehand to the 
tahsildar, or county magistrate, as to the route 

146 




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Oddities of Travel in India 

he wishes to go, and the time he expects to start, 
and orders are sent on in advance to have relays 
of trotting bullocks ready on the road at from six 
to eight miles apart, each yoke of bullocks being 
accompanied by its own driver, who is often the 
owner of the bullocks. 

As often as you come to the end of a stage, you 
pay the driver at the rate of six or nine cents per 
mile, for the distance he has come, according to 
the official way-bill which he presents, and so 
you go on, by night and day, to the end of your 
journey. In the hot weather, however, travelling 
is always done in the night when practicable, to 
avoid the heat, and because the bullocks will 
travel faster by night. 

The usual travelling coach, or "gharry," is a 
sort of two-wheeled omnibus, with a platform 
across the seats, and a mattress covering the 
whole, for night travel, and a place for luggage 
underneath. More recently, however, lighter four- 
wheeled vehicles are coming into use. The one 
I go in is somewhat like a ''Jersey rockaway," 
or a green grocer's wagon, with standing cover, 
and oilcloth curtains which button down tight, 
even in front, when desired, so as to keep out all 
rain in the Monsoon. There are two seats, the 
front flap of the hind one opening up and hook- 

J47 



The Cobra's Den 

ing on to the front one, and its flap hooking on 
to the dashboard, so as to make a level surface 
about six feet by three inside. On this a mattress, 
or cushions are spread, with pillows, and two 
persons, if necessary, can lie, and sleep through 
the night, as much as the joltings and frequent 
changes of bullocks will allow. Under the seats 
is a place for luggage. 

This is of a miscellaneous character, for there 
are no hotels on the ordinary routes of travel ; 
only "Traveller's Bungalows," or rest-houses, 
unfurnished, or with simply beds, chairs, tables, 
and crockery. The traveller must take his lunch 
box, well filled, and other necessaries along with 
him, and usually his servant to cook rice and 
curry for him at the bungalows, and attend to his 
wants on the journey. One is never safe start- 
ing on a long journey without his sun umbrella, 
made of two thicknesses, white without and 
black within, and his pith topi or sun hat; for 
he may break down at midday, and have to walk 
miles to the nearest rest-house. 

The clock strikes 9 p. m. "Boy! It is time 
we were off. Put in the Kusa (porous goglet) 
of cold water, and light the coach lamps, or is it 
bright enough moonlight to do without ? " " Yes 
sir, done got Kusa in. White moonlight. Lamps 

J4a 



Oddities of Travel in India 

not need. All ready, sir." "Very well. Jump 
on behind." And off we go. 

There is a seat on behind for a servant, with a 
strap for him to strap himself in, lest he fall off 
in his sleep. The driver sits on the carriage pole, 
for the double purpose of putting weight on the 
bullocks' necks to hold down the light yoke, 
which is only a round pole, with ropes for bows, 
and also that he may be in a position to twist the 
bullocks' tails with his bare toes to make them 
quicken their gait! This he does frequently, as 
easier and more efficacious than whipping. The 
bullocks jog along at about four miles an hour. 
This driver has good bullocks (they are his own) 
and has obtained the privilege of taking me two 
stages, or fifteen miles, so as to earn more money. 
He should be at the changing place at half-past 
twelve. 

We soon pass out from among the rice fields, 
which surround the town, and pass the few 
sugar-cane fields, and the more numerous millet 
fields, now all bare and parched, out into the 
open stony country, and on into the ten miles of 
open jungle we have to cross to come to the next 
village. Between my naps I am sure I hear the 
"boy" snoring on the seat behind, and think I 
detect, every now and then, symptoms of the 

149 



The Cobra's Den 

driver taking short naps, when suddenly I hear a 
thud, and the wheels on the right side of the car- 
riage seem to go over a big stone, or rather some 
large, soft obstacle. 1 spring up and look out 
under the partly rolled up curtains just in time to 
see the brawny driver picking himself up and 
shaking off the dust. The driver's seat on the 
pole is very small. He had got to sleep, and 
was nodding, and nodded so far over to the 
right, as he sat sideways, as to precipitate him- 
self whack onto the ground, frightening the 
bullocks which jumped forward and both wheels 
of the light conveyance passed over his body. 

He was thoroughly ashamed that he had got to 
sleep while on duty and tumbled off, and was 
afraid it would ruin his credit as a driver if it 
were known. I said nothing until he had limp- 
ingly caught up, and jumped on to his seat again 
without the bullocks having stopped, and then I 
said, "Well, you nodded yourself off, didn't 
you ? I hope the wheels did not seriously hurt 
you." "Oh, no," said he, for he did not know 
that I had seen it all, " 1 have not been asleep. I 
didn't tumble off. 1 dropped my whip, and just 
jumped off and ran back to pick it up. That 
was all!" When, half an hour later, we came 
to the relay of bullocks and he was limping 

150 



Oddities of Travel in India 

around unhitching his, he explained that *' driv- 
ing in the night sometimes gave him lumbago 
or rheumatism, and made him stiff and lame!" 
And this story he will doubtless tell his people, 
when he gets home, to account for his sudden 
lameness, so as not to be laughed at for getting 
to sleep and tumbling off his seat. Poor fellow; 
he was sufficiently punished, and I shall not tell 
on him. I paid him his full hire, and a present 
besides, to procure liniment to apply to his lum- 
bago ! 

In the next nineteen miles I had three changes 
of bullocks and drivers. One of the other drivers 
tumbled off when it was not his own fault. We 
were passing through another somewhat open 
jungle. The moon was just setting, and was ob- 
scured by the clouds in the horizon, casting a 
faint, lurid light. The bullocks were going 
along quietly. The carriage made scarcely any 
noise to give warning of our approach. All at 
once a hyena, which had been crouching behind 
a bush, startled by our approach, darted out and 
across our pathway and wheeled and ran to our 
rear. The bullocks, terrified by the sudden ap- 
parition, dashed off. The driver lost control of 
them, though he had hold of the rope reins 
which are attached to a ring in the nose of each 

151 



The Cobra's Den 

bullock. They sprang to the opposite side of 
the road from which the hyena had gone. One 
of the bullocks fell into a deep gutter that he was 
too blinded by terror to notice, and the other 
bullock head over heels on top of him, while the 
driver was pitched forward and fell partly be- 
tween the prostrate oxen. No great harm was 
done. The ropes, which attached the yoke to the 
pole of the carriage, were soon repaired. The 
driver was unhurt, but this time it was the bull- 
ock that limped through the rest of its stage. 

By six o'clock in the morning we had come 
thirty-four miles, and arrived at the Bungalow 
where I spend as much of the heat of the day as 
I can spare from my journey. My servant pre- 
pares a hasty "Chota hazri," or early breakfast, 
and I put my carriage mattress on a cot, and get 
some of the sleep that I did not succeed in get- 
ting during the night. With the aid of my lunch 
box a good dinner is made ready by two o'clock, 
for I must be off soon after three, to catch the 
train that passes the nearest railway station, 
twenty-six miles from here, at lo p. m. 

Whew! How hot it is, as I emerge from the 
shady bungalow compound out into the dusty 
street. It is only the middle of April, but all 
vegetation seems killed, except the leaves of the 

152 



Oddities of Travel in India 

trees, and they look as though they were going 
into a decline! Fields, pastures, meadows, — not 
a particle of green upon one of them. Grass 
roots have to be dug for the horses to eat, al- 
though they live chiefly on a kind of grain called 
gram, a small bean. The unhappy cows and 
milch buffaloes wander around in the desperate 
attempt to find some bit of half dried up grass 
they can pick, and looking forward longingly 
for the fodder of the last crop's millet straw, 
which they will have as they come up to their 
master's house to be milked at night. The sheep 
are partially happy, and, the multitudinous flocks 
of goats entirely so as they crop the leaves of the 
stunted bushes in the dried up jungles. The 
hens go panting around, with the mouth half 
open to breathe, vainly searching for the grass- 
hoppers that cannot now find enough to support 
life, and waiting for the sundown to bring the 
ants out for them to prey upon. April and May 
are, indeed, the dreariest, deadest months of the 
whole year. There is the dreariness of winter, 
with the heat of a furnace. There is not a cloud 
in the brazen sky. Not a breath of air to blow 
away the choking dust which the bullocks kick 
up as they go. My black coat is fast becoming 

white, and the heat in the carriage seems stifling. 

153 



The Cobra's Den 

Over the carriage cover and sides is a covering of 
a double thickness of white cloth to intercept as 
much as possible of the sun's direct rays, but 
still I only exist, rather than live, until the haze 
of the horizon deadens the rays of the setting 
sun. 

As darkness begins to come on I am in a 
mountain pass, through which a carriage road 
bears witness to much engineering skill. For 
five miles there is not the sign of a human habi- 
tation, except that near the entrance is a strongly 
built police station, with its armed squad of po- 
lice, placed there to protect travellers from the 
Dacoits, or robber banditti, proclaimed outlaws, 
who, every now and then traverse this region on 
their marauding expeditions. The police mildly 
suggest to me that it would be safer if 1 would 
stop over at the police station until near morn- 
ing, as native travellers usually do, but I point to 
my well-loaded revolver, which lies on my mat- 
tress at my side, and tell the driver to go on. 

These Dacoits are unspeakably cruel in torturing 
their unarmed victims until they will point out 
their valuables secreted in their baggage, but 
when it comes to cold lead from a European 
revolver, used by a fearless foreigner, they 
are great cowards. It is well known that we 

154 



Oddities of Travel in India 

always go armed through such places, and 
the knowledge of this fact mostly prevents 
our having to use our weapons, for it prevents 
our being attacked. I have taken the precau- 
tion, however, to engage in advance a Masalji- 
IVallah, or torch bearer, to run through this 
dark pass with his flaming torch in front of the 
bullocks. The Dacoits like to approach and at- 
tack in total darkness, and besides, where torches 
are borne in advance of a conveyance, it is prob- 
able that there are armed Europeans in the con- 
veyance. I pass over the ground unmolested, 
and reach the railway station in ample time, se- 
cure a place in a sleeping compartment, and 
start on at a pace somewhat more rapid than 
that of the oxen. 

It is now morning, and I am writing in the 
train. I have had a very funny time of it since 
three o'clock, but of that and of the further 
events of the journey I must write after I have 
given a description of our train and the India 
railway arrangements. 

What a sensation this train that I am travelling 
on would make if seen running from New York 
to Philadelphia and Chicago, especially if people 
along the line were told that it was not an emi- 
grant train, but the great express and mail train! 

155 



The Cobra's Den 

This road, "The Madras Railway," is reckoned 
one of the principal roads in India. It has nearly 
800 miles of line, and is well built, with good 
stations all along the line. It is a broad guage 
railway, and is subsidised by the Anglo-Indian 
government so as to be controlled by them for 
military purposes. The cars are built more the 
shape of American freight cars, only not quite so 
long. They have no platforms at the ends, but 
are coupled together like an American freight 
train. Each car is divided into compartments, 
entered at the side of the car, and reaching 
across. The seats face one another, and each 
single compartment holds twelve persons when 
crowded full, one half of them riding backward. 

The train is made up of three kinds of passen- 
ger carriages, besides freight and baggage cars. 
The first-class passenger carriages, though of the 
shape described above, and with doors and win- 
dows in the side only, are better built than the 
others, and are all arranged so as to turn into 
sleeping cars at night. They are cushioned with 
leather-covered hair cushions, but not usually 
with spring seats. The second-class carriages 
have no cushions, simply board seats. Shelves 
are made to raise up, like the shelves of a pantry, 
three on each side, one above another, so that 

156 



Oddities of Travel in India 

six passengers can lie down comfortably, if they 
have brought along their own mattresses and 
pillows, in each compartment. If there are more 
than six in one compartment some must sit up. 
The third-class carriages are, many of them, 
all in one compartment, with fixed wooden 
benches, and with no glass windows at the 
sides, simply rough Venetians to slide up and 
down; nothing to keep out dust, and no double 
roof. The first and second-class carriages have 
double roofs and both glass and Venetian win- 
dows to protect passengers from sun-stroke on 
the journey. 

The fares are; — first-class four and one-half 
cents, second-class, one and three-fourth cents, 
third-class, one-half cent per mile. This last is 
not expensive travelling. It would be equal to 
going through from New York to Chicago for 
$4.50, but, strange to say, this railway makes 
nearly all its profits, so far as passenger traffic is 
concerned, from its third-class passengers, at half 
a cent a mile. For the third-class carriages are al- 
most always full, and often crowded, while as 
often the first and second-class are half or three- 
fourths empty, and sometimes a first-class car- 
riage will go through a hundred miles entirely 

empty, or with but one passenger in it. Many 

157 



The Cobra's Den 

trains run with one small first-class carriage, one 
second, and from eight to twelve third. The old 
saying on the continent used to be that "only 
lords, Americans, and fools travel first-class." 

Here the higher English officials are obliged to 
travel first-class to keep up their dignity! A few 
wealthy natives nabobs also go that way to '* cut 
a swell." The majority of foreigners, however, 
and Eurasians (half-castes) go in the more demo- 
cratic second-class, and also a fair number of 
well-to-do natives, but they usually prefer to take 
a separate compartment from the Europeans. 
The multitude, consisting of the poorer Eurasians, 
and of Brahmins, Sudras and Pariahs, priests and 
people, artisans, traders, farmers, coolies, crowd 
into the cheaper and more popular third-class 
carriages. Being thus huddled together is a great 
leveller of old caste prejudices, and the railway 
thus becomes something of an educator of the 
people. 

There is no means of communicating with the 
conductor, or "chief guard " as he is here called, 
while the train is in motion. Every fifty miles 
the train stops by a platform long enough for the 
"ticket inspectors" to come along by the win- 
dows and inspect the tickets of all the pas- 
sengers, to see that none are travelling without 

153 



- Oddities of Travel in India 

tickets, and on alighting from a train you have to 
give up your ticket as you pass out of the gate. 
There is, however, in each compartment, placed 
conspicuously, a glass dial with an electric bell- 
push under the glass, and printed instructions at- 
tached to tell you that if any accident occurs to 
your car while the train is in motion you must 
''break the glass and press on the bell-push." 
This communicates with an electric bell on the 
locomotive, and the train is brought to a stand- 
still, and the guard rushes along outside inquiring 
as to what has gone wrong! 

At ten o'clock last evening I finished my sixty 
miles' journey with bullocks to the railway sta- 
tion, and awaited the incoming of this train. As 
it slowed up the chief guard sprang upon the 
station platform to see what passengers were to 
be accommodated. Finding me with a second- 
class ticket, and some twenty natives with third- 
class, he called to the under gaurd to crowd 
those into the already well-filled third-class car- 
riages, and proceeded to unlock the door of a 
second-class compartment and assigned me a 
place on the upper shelf, the other "shelves" be- 
ing already occupied. Spreading my small travel- 
ling mattress on the shelf, and placing my pillows 
and shawl thereon and my other small luggage at 

159 



The Cobra's Den 

my feet, I climbed up and lay down. The guard 
shut and locked the door, and the train moved 
on. 

At one o'clock we came to the junction of one 
of the chief branches of this road, where it took 
twenty minutes to make the necessary change 
of passengers and luggage, amid such a hubbub 
that a stranger to it would have thought that 
bedlam had broken loose. Hindus cannot ac- 
complish much without double the noise of even 
Frenchmen. All of my fellow-passengers in this 
compartment left, and the train moved on with 
me as its sole occupant until about three o'clock, 
when we come to a large town where probably 
100 passengers leave, and as many more get on. 

The train stops here twenty minutes. Soon the 
door of my compartment is unlocked and opened 
by the under guard, and I hear a burly European 
voice arguing with him. I hear the guard, a na- 
tive, saying to him in English, " No, I can't. See, 
there is a gentleman asleep in the upper berth." 
*' Well, then, go and call the chief guard," is the 
response. I appear to be sound asleep and do 
not move. The chief guard, a native also, 
comes, peers in, and says, "No, I can't doit." 
*'Well, then, I'll see the station master," is the 
reply. The station master, a portly native offi- 

160 



Oddities of Travel in India 

cial, comes and looks in, (I am still apparently 
asleep) and says, ''No, I can't disturb that gentle- 
man after he has paid his fare and been assigned 
to his berth. It is contrary to our rules. You 
will have to put your wife and children in the 
ladies' compartment, right here in this same car- 
riage, and yourself take a berth in here." After 
ten minutes more wrangling, to which I pay no 
attention, a rug is put in on the opposite lower 
seat, a portly form seems to lie down on it, and 
we move off. Every time we stop there are mut- 
terings and imprecations on the guards, the sta- 
tion master, and the railway, but I appear to 
sleep on. 

A little before sunrise, at a quarter to six here 
at this season, I appear to wake up, climb down 
from my exalted position, spread my mattress 
cushion on the lower seat, let down the upper 
shelves, take out my writing, and begin to pen 
further notes on my journey. But it is no use. 
My burly companion has been bottled up too 
long. He must talk or burst. I lay down my 
writing pad and pencil a moment to look in the 
railway guide, and out it comes; "Going far.? 
if I may ask the question." "Only to the next 
junction on this train," is my reply. That is fif- 
teen miles ahead. This express mail train runs 

161 



The Cobra's Den 

just twenty miles an hour! So it will take us 
three-quarters of an hour to get there. 

''Then do you take the other railway from 
there?" ''I intend doing so." ''As far as?" 
I smile and name the next junction, where I will 
have to change cars the second time. '* Yes, glad 
to hear it. What do you suppose that humorous 
American, Artemus Ward, would have said to 
such a railway as this, and to these miserable 
carriages? Do you really suppose they are as 
good as those he characterised as ' second-hand 
coffins ' ? You have heard of Artemus Ward I 
presume?" 

I admitted having heard of such a person. 
" Well," he says — and here he proceeded to 
quote that celebrated author's opinions on vari- 
ous questions connected with railway travel- 
ling; and suddenly brought up with "Your 
name, please ? " I meekly give it. I have heard 
much of the world famed inquisitiveness of the 
Yankee traveller. I see at a glance that my com- 
panion is an Englishman, as proves to be the 
case, and I determine to humour him, and see 
how far he will go. 

"My name is Jackson," he proceeds, "William 
Jackson, at your service. I hold such and such 
an office in the town this train stopped at, about 

162 



Oddities of Travel in India 

three o'clock this morning. I've got a wife and 
five children with me on the train." I bowed my 
acknowledgments for this interesting piece of 
information, and my loquacious friend proceeded: 
''This railway is a wretched concern, terribly 
mismanaged, with a fearfully inefficient staff of 
officials and employees. They demand high 
fares from their passengers, (he was paying one 
and three-fourth cents a mile) and yet they won't 
accommodate you a bit. Now I tried my best to 
get the station master and the guards to vacate this 
compartment when I got on the train, and let 
my wife and children and self have it to our- 
selves, but, bless you, they wouldn't do it. I 
kept at the station master the whole ten minutes 
the train was waiting, trying to make him clear 
it out and give it to us. (This meant, of course, 
turning me out bag, baggage, and bedding at 
three a. m.) but he was not accommodating a 

bit. Now on the Railway you can make 

the station master do anything you wish, but this 
fellow would not oblige us, but made my wife 
and children go into the ladies' compartment next 
(divided from this by a thin board partition) and 
put me in here alone, when I might have had my 
family with me all this time. It's too bad!" I 
assented that it was rather hard lines. 

163 



The Cobra's Den 

" Do you know Mr. So and So ? " he resumed. 
I admit that I know them. '* They are somewhat 
old friends of mine. You come from where?" 
With a scarcely suppressed grin I let him start 
on the catechism again, curious to see where he 
would run. His questions took a wide range 
and he pushed them with vigour. 1 found myself 
trying to recall my wife's maternal grandmother's 
maiden name, to be ready when that question 
should come, when a shriek from the locomotive 
announces our near approach to the junction, and 
gives me a great relief. Talk to me about in- 
quisitive loquacious Yankee travellers after this! 
I never saw one that would come within shoot- 
ing distance of this Englishman, though I confess 
such specimens are rare. So I suspect the " typ- 
ical Yankee" specimens are. 

Now the subject changes. He is also going to 
take the other railway here; but our train is 
twenty-five minutes behind time, and he is " per- 
fectly sure we will miss our connection, you 
know, for the two companies are at loggerheads, 
and won't wait for one another at all; and what 
makes the matter worse is that to-day he is going 
on unusually important business," — and he pauses 
for me to ask what that very important business 
is, but I do not take the hint. I have something 

164 



Oddities of Travel in India 

more important to do. Through the open win- 
dow I see that the train of the other road is wait- 
ing at its station, not ten rods from the one we 
are to stop at. 

I get all my things ready, strap up my mat- 
tress, pillows and shawls, and the moment the 
train slows up, I motion with a coin in my hand 
to three cooly porters, toss out my luggage to 
them, which they seize, and follow me up 
over the bridge that goes over our train, and 
over the multitudinous tracks, and so on to the 
ticket office of the other road. I secure my ticket 
and get to the place for weighing luggage before 
any of our other passengers appear. On to the 
scales are piled my valise, bag, lunch box, mat- 
tress, umbrella, boots and pith hat! for every- 
thing must be weighed and extra paid for every 
pound in excess of sixty pounds, the limit of 
baggage allowed free to second-class passengers. 
I secure my receipt for that and the coolies bring 
my "belongings" on with me to the farthest 
forward second-class compartment, put the valise 
and bag and lunch box under the seat, receive 
their promised present, make their profound 
salaams, and run off to seek another job. I select 
the front compartment, for, if my catechetical 
friend should succeed in making the transfer with 

165 



The Cobra's Den 

his family, I do not particularly desire that he 
should find me, and resume the domestic cate- 
chism, or talk me into a premature grave. I mop 
off the perspiration from my face, for the ther- 
mometer stands already between 90° and 100° in 
the shade at 6:30 a. m., and settle down for 
a thoroughly uncomfortable day, for I have to 
travel all day over some of the hottest plains of 
South India. 

We are now on the narrow guage or metre 
guage line known as the " South India railway." 
The cars, or carriages, are much smaller; the lo- 
comotive much lighter and less powerful; the 
track not nearly so heavy, and the bridges of 
much cheaper construction, and as a consequence 
the speed at which trains are allowed to run is 
less, and the fare is less. An effort is being made 
to open out larger stretches of country with the 
same capital and the results are proving the wis- 
dom of the experiment, but the traveller must be 
more patient, for it takes longer to run a hundred 
miles, and the comfort is less, for the train shakes 
and vibrates more. 

About eleven o'clock we run into the Trichinop- 
oly Junction, and here a half hour is given us for 
breakfast, for up to this time we have not had a 
chance to get anything to eat. We find a fairly 

166 



Oddities of Travel in India 

good breakfast on the table, for the "guard" had 
telegraphed ahead the number of those who 
wished breakfast. In half an hour we are off on 
the other train which runs to Tuticorin, and this 
is perhaps the most arid, certainly the hottest part 
of our journey. In spite of the double roof of 
the cars, in spite of the double windows, to keep 
out the heat, the thermometer soon passes the 
hundred mark; at one p. m., it has passed 103° 
and goes on feeling its way toward 1 10°. No 
crops are on the parched fields except where irri- 
gation allows rice to be grown, and that is very 
rarely on this arid stretch. 

The native villages we pass by, with their 
streets of mud wall, thatch roof houses, look hot 
enough to burst out blazing from the sun's heat 
alone. When one house does take fire from any 
cause the whole village will be consumed in an 
hour. Many of the trees stand entirely without 
leaves, for the deciduous trees cast their leaves in 
the hot dry season instead of in winter, as in a 
cold climate. 

By four p. m., we have reached the end of our 
railway journey at a station with a name as long 
as a whiplash, viz, Ammayanayakanur! Thirty 
rods from the station is a *' Travellers' Bungalow " 
which is so much patronised that a butler is kept 

167 



The Cobra's Den 

there, who supplies meals to travellers who 
telegraph him in advance, as I did. Thither 
I go with my belongings, and have time to 
wash up and rest a little before taking dinner 
at five p. M., for I do not wish to start on my 
"bullock transit" journey until the sun nears the 
horizon. 

It is thirty-two miles hence to the foot of the 
ghat, or steep pathway up the mountain. A 
good road has been constructed by the govern- 
ment, and rival native companies have organised 
lines of transits, to take passengers through. 

A bullock transit here consists of a two- 
wheeled cart with heavy wheels, with a box 
seven feet long and nearly a yard wide, over 
which is a woven bamboo cover. The body of 
the cart rests on stiff, unyielding springs attached 
to the axle, and in it is usually placed a bundle of 
fresh rice straw for the passenger, or passengers 
to lie on, and which the bullocks will eat at the 
end of the journey. The passenger puts his 
"resai," or light travelling mattress, or a rug 
over the loose straw, and getting in himself and 
lying down, with his luggage at his feet and 
side, he gives the word to be off. The driver 
springs onto his seat in front, with his bare feet 

hanging down so that he can with his toes grasp 

168 



Oddities of Travel in India 

the tails of the bullocks and twist them to make 
them go, and off we start. 

Being weary I was just falling into a doze 
when a rattling, whirring, metallic sound makes 
me spring up and look out; there in the dim 
light I see the tire of one of the wheels running 
off and tipping over into the ditch at the side of 
the road. A shout brings the driver to a halt, 
and in dismay he sees the mishap. An empty 
transit soon comes up, to my delight at first, but 
it proves to belong to the rival line, and with 
jeers and chuckles he drives on. The oxen are 
unhitched, and the cart left to stand until the 
driver goes to the town we had just passed, and, 
after a long time, appears with another transit, a 
very poor one, but in I get with my luggage and 
we are on our way again. Every six miles the 
bullocks are changed, and I strike a match, look 
at my watch, and, if the driver has made good 
time, give him a present, and tell the coming 
driver that he will have one if he drives well, 
and not without. Cat-naps are secured between, 
if the jolting is not too great, and at last the 
transit journey is ended. 

At two A. M. we arrive at the tope, or grove at 
the foot of the ascent, and there, sleeping on the 
bare ground under the trees, in the moonlight, 

169 



The Cobra's Den 

are the twelve coolies I had previously arranged 
for, for the ascent. Four of them are to take my 
luggage, and eight are to carry me up the twelve 
miles, climbing nearly 7,000 feet. One can ride 
up on a scraggy country pony, if he can endure 
it, or go up sitting upright in a chair, borne with 
poles, on the shoulders of six men, four at a 
time, and the other two changing with them. 
But as I am too ill and weak to sit up for so long, 
I have ordered a dooly, which is something like a 
short hammock hung to a long bamboo, and 
borne by two men in front, and two behind, the 
others coming along and changing every mile or 
half mile where very steep. If it is dark, a torch 
bearer goes in front, but there is a bright moon 
to-night. 

The first five miles is up a valley by the side of 
a winding brook, and the ascent is very gentle, 
and good time is made. Then comes a mile of 
stiff climbing and the bearers put one down on 
the ground by a spring, announcing that they are 
going to have some breakfast. Often too they 
will slip away out of call and lie down and take 
a nap, leaving you with your hammock lying on 
the ground. But at last they return, and take 
you up, and after another half hour you come to 
the beginning of the famous zigzags up the face 

170 



Oddities of Travel in India 

of the rocky mountain, which have been made at 
no small cost. 

There are sixty-seven zigs, and sixty-seven 
zags, in this one place, and as the sun has 
now risen and is shining hot upon you the as- 
cent is very wearisome. At their top another 
spring is reached, and another halt is made, and 
then, in four miles more of less steep climb- 
ing, with the sun pouring so hot upon one that 
he hardly realises that he has reached the cooler 
climate, you at last ascend the last zigzag to the 
eastern crest of the summit, and, passing under 
the shade of the trees, you are glad to put your 
overcoat on, as you dismount and look down 
upon the beautiful lake lying at 7,000 feet above 
the sea, and realise that you are in the climate of 
southern France in early summer, for the ther- 
mometer stands in the shade at 60° which is 
lower than you have seen it on the plains even in 
the coolest months, and you admit that a deli- 
cious climate and beautiful scenery and a grateful 
breeze reward you for your long, hot, wearisome 
sixty hours' journey. 



171 



XVII 

A MISSIONARY SANITARIUM IN INDIA 

KoDAiKANAL is, perhaps, of all the sanitaria of 
India, the one most advantageous for, and the 
one most patronised by missionaries. It is about 
7,200 feet above the sea, on the summit of the 
Palani, or Pulney Mountains, which separate the 
fertile Madura district of the Madras presidency 
from the native kingdom of Travancore. ''The 
Pulney s," as they are called, are some forty miles 
long by twenty broad, and are a part of the 
mountain range, reaching from near Cape 
Comorin up to the north of Bombay, parallel 
with the sea of Arabia, and from twenty to sixty 
miles from its shore, and known in geographies 
as " The Western Ghats." The Nilgiris and Mah- 
ableshwar are the more northern elevations of 
the same mountain range. 

Half a century ago two of the missionaries of 
the Madura mission of the A. B. C. F. M., whose 
stations were near the base of these almost pre- 
cipitous mountains, determined to accomplish 
their ditficult ascent, to visit and preach to the 

172 




I— I 

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H 
t— t 

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Q 

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o 



A Missionary Sanitarium 

few mountaineers, and see what the climate 
might be, and whether it were not possible to 
have a sanitarium thus near them, in which to 
take refuge sometimes in the burning heat, or 
when ill, and thus avoid, perhaps, an absolute 
breakdown and an expensive journey to the 
home land for restoration. 

Finding some of the hill people who had 
brought their wares to the periodical market at 
the mission station at the foot of the mountain, 
they induced them to pilot them, and carry for 
them a small amount of necessities up the diffi- 
cult footpath utilised by the mountaineers. On 
reaching the summit they found a natural basin, 
whose bottom was about 6,900 feet above sea- 
level, with numerous springs of water bursting 
out of the sides of the hills that surrounded the 
basin, whose round and grassy summits were 
7,300 to 7,700 feet above sea-level, and on whose 
sides were groves of forest trees. 

Choosing a site in a grove 100 feet above the 
little brook, fed by all these pellucid springs, they 
erected a simple hut, with thatched roof and 
"wattle and daub" sides, and spent some days 
in it, testing the climate, exploring the hills, and 
preaching to the people they found in the few 
mountain hamlets. It were interesting to trace 

173 



The Cobra's Den 

the experiences they had and their efforts to find 
a feasible coolie-path or bridle-road, up which 
coolies with loads, and ponies with riders, and 
donkeys with packs could come ; suffice it to say 
that ere many years had elapsed, by the aid of the 
district government officials, a passable coolie- 
ghat, and bridle-path, zigzagging up twelve miles 
from the foot, had been constructed, and a dam 
built, at small cost, across a narrow spot, turn- 
ing the little brook into a beautiful lake, three 
miles around at the water's edge, into which fish 
were speedily introduced, and a few inexpensive 
houses had been erected by the Madras mission* 
aries and the government officials of the district, 
who appreciated for themselves, and especially 
for their wives and children, the boon of having 
within a night's journey a change of temperature 
from 100° in the shade on the plain, to 60° or 66° 
by the little lake on the mountain. 

This was the origin of the now well-known 
sanitarium of Kodaikanal. For many years its 
inaccessibility to all but those in the adjacent dis- 
tricts militated against its growth, for a journey 
of 350 miles by bullock bandy from Madras across 
the scorching plains to the foot of the mountains 
would prove too much for many an invalid, who 
might otherwise be saved and restored by its in- 

174 



A Missionary Sanitarium 

vigourating climate; and other sanitaria more 
readily accessible were patronised far more. 
Now, however, th^re is a railway from Madras 
to Tuticorin, near Cape Comorin, passing within 
thirty-two miles of the foot of the mountain, 
from which bandies (covered carts), drawn by 
relays of trotting bullocks, bring one by night, in 
from six to eight hours, to a little traveller's bun- 
galow at the beginning of the ascent, whence 
starting before daylight one can come up in a 
chair or dooly borne by eight coolies, or can ride 
up on a scrubby country pony, making the 
twelve miles' climb, including the loo zigzags, in 
five or six hours. 

Houses, built of stone found in abundance on 
the spot in broken masses, as though already 
quarried, with red clay as mortar, have been 
erected among the trees on all the hillsides around 
the lake, and have been steadily creeping up from 
near the lake level until now the tops of the hills, 
7,300 and 7,500 feet high, are utilised as building 
sites. The government astronomer kindly in- 
forms me that the government reckoning of the 
height of Kodaikanal is 7,209 feet above the sea- 
level, which I take to be the mean height of the 
residential portion of this mountain resort. The 
great Government Observatory for India now 

175 



The Cobra's Den 

erecting is on a hill 7,700 feet high, overlooking 
the lake from the west. 

It is singular that nearly all the great sanitaria 
of India, North and South, are at practically the 
same elevation above the sea : Simla being 
7,116, Darjeeling 7,168, Ootacamund 7,271, Ko- 
daikanal 7,209; while Mussurie, Nynee Tal, 
Mahableshwar, Coonoor, and the Shevaroys are 
a few hundred feet lower. 

Kodaikanal has less non-missionary visitors 
than the other great sanitaria. Simla is the sum- 
mer capital of the Viceroy, Darjeeling of Bengal, 
Nynee Tal of the Northwest Provinces, Mah- 
ableshwar of Bombay, and Ootacamund of Ma- 
dras, and hosts of government officials with 
their families accompany the governors there, 
and other Europeans swarm those places. In 
them all, and in others also, large and increasing 
numbers of missionaries too are found each 
season, obtaining a new lease of life for more 
vigorous work on the plains. 

Kodaikanal, however, is a smaller and more 
quiet place. There is less of fashion; it is less 
expensive; it is more restful. Its climate is less 
damp than many of the hill stations. Being 
nearer the equator, in latitude 10° 15' north, its 
climate varies but little in different seasons of the 

176 



A Missionary Sanitarium 

year. The thermometer loo feet above the lake 
never goes below 40° in the cold months; it 
never rises above 76° in the hot months. In 
January and February frost is seen on the shores 
of the lake, but never 100 feet above. In April 
and May, the hottest months here, I have not 
seen the mercury above 75° nor below 60°, vary- 
ing thus less than fifteen degrees night and day, 
week in and week out. Essentially the same as 
to the temperature during the hot months of the 
year, might be said of nearly all the great sani- 
taria of India. There is not the real tonic effect 
of frost upon the system. It does not build one 
up who is much run down, as a winter in the 
temperate zone does; but an occasional change 
to one of these sanitaria is exceedingly helpful in 
preventing the utter breakdown that has 
wrecked many a promising missionary career 
too near its beginning. 

Missionary societies have come to appreciate 
the economy, both in health to the missionary 
and in money to their supporters, in having a 
sanitarium where their missionaries, jaded by 
months of incessant work in touring, preaching, 
school work, looking after the sick, working up 
more and more in the languages of the people, 

and, what so burdened the Apostle Paul, "the 

177 



The Cobra's Den 

care of all the churches," could come for six or 
eight weeks of respite both from heat and from 
wearing work, and recuperate the worn physical 
and mental powers. It prolongs the years of 
service; it saves the hves of experienced mission- 
aries, and prevents the necessity of so rapidly 
replacing them by novices. It forestalls the cost 
of many a long sea journey to the native land to 
save a life that would otherwise be sacrificed. 

The ''American Board," the leader in this wise 
movement, has been so convinced of this, that 
for more than thirty years it has provided a suffi- 
cient number of houses, inexpensive but com- 
fortable, so that every member of their large 
Madura mission can find room here through 
April and May, the two most trying of the eight 
hot months of the year. These houses are then 
rented, as far as possible, during the remaining 
hot months, to others, usually the families of 
government and railway officials and European 
business men, and thus the expense of keeping 
up the houses is mostly met, and there is no 
drain on the contributions of the home churches 
for missionary purposes. Other missionary 
boards and societies are fast falling into line in 
affording these facilities, considering it in the in- 
terest of the truest economy so to do. 

178 



A Missionary Sanitarium 

A missionary census of Kodaikanal, completed 
to-day, shows that there have come up so far, 
and are now in Kodaikanal, 170 missionaries, 
with sixty-two children, or 2-^2 in all, of mission- 
ary families, representing fourteen different mis- 
sionary societies, American, British, and German; 
in numbers the English being first and the Ameri- 
cans a close second; the Germans, Swedes, 
Australians, and Canadians being fewer. 

It is not for a simple "play spell" that all 
these missionaries come up. Some indeed come 
so run down and ill that they must have abso- 
lute rest. Others come for change and recuper- 
ation with work, which they are able to bring up 
with them. The going over and valuing of hun- 
dreds of examination papers of the missionary 
colleges and schools whose spring term closes as 
their principals and teachers come up for the va- 
cation, or the yearly examination papers of our 
native assistants who, each in his own village, 
carry on Biblical and theological studies through 
the year; the bringing up of arrears of corre- 
spondence and accounts; the preparation or re- 
vision of vernacular tracts and books; with 
young missionaries, the more vigorous study of 
the language; important committee work, that 
can be done better here than in the whirl of work 

179 



The Cobra's Den 

below; these and other matters demand a good 
portion of the time of all who are able to work. 

There is another most important advantage 
here to the isolated missionaries coming from 
scattered stations, who have little means of 
spiritual uplift through the year, except in private 
study and in the closet. 

Every year there is held here, in May, a four 
days' convention for the deepening of spiritual 
life, to which we look forward with joy as one 
of the chief blessings of our sojourn. This year 
it was held May 7th to 10th inclusive, and was 
under the stimulating leadership of Dr. W. W. 
White, of Mr. Moody's Biblical Institute, Chi- 
cago, who has been giving two years of excep- 
tional service to the young men of India. At 
each of our two daily sessions it was grand to 
see the earnest, joyous countenances of the mis- 
sionaries that filled the American mission church, 
while we together considered the themes Christ, 
the Bible, the Holy Spirit, Prayer, and seemed to 
participate in the promised '' fullness." 

This week the annual Kodaikanal missionary 
conference meets for three days, for discussing 
important missionary problems, preparation for 
which has been made throughout the year. The 
sessions close with a united missionary breakfast 

180 



A Missionary Sanitarium 

in a grove, at which above 1 50 missionaries will 
be present and partake of food physical, and in- 
tellectual as well, in the after-breakfast speeches, 
and draw closer the bonds of missionary comity 
and loving friendship ere, next week, most of us 
go back to our more or less solitary stations, with 
new vows of consecration to Him who has given 
us so much of joy and uplift on these, His de- 
lectable mountains, for His glorious service. 



181 



XVIII 

HOW THE ''CUT" CUTS 

Yes. I think I can answer the question asked 
me as to "What Retrenchment Means in India," 
for I have recently met, in conference, mission- 
aries of fourteen different societies and we have 
compared notes. We have told one another of 
our joys, yes, and of our sorrows and disappoint- 
ments too, for on many of those missions the 
axe of retrenchment has fallen, fallen heavily, 
since from ten to thirty-three per cent, of the 
annual expenditure for work on the field has, in 
several instances, been cut off by the cut of re- 
trenchment, and from the fullness of their hearts 
and mine I speak. 

"Self-support among the mission churches" 
is, it is true, the apostolic plan, and none are 
working harder toward that end than the mis- 
sionaries who are pushing the founding of native 
churches in India. To our joy steady progress 
is being made. In church after church in India a 
majority of the members give one-tenth of their 
income for church support and evangelistic effort. 

182 



How the "Cut" Cuts 

Is that exceeded in happy, Christian America? 
But even that tenth makes but a small aggregate 
here, for the average income is so scant. "To 
the poor is the gospel preached," has always 
been the glory of Christianity. Even under the 
preaching of the apostles, "not many mighty, 
not many noble " were called. In India, too, God 
hath chosen the weak things of the world to 
confound the mighty. But the mighty are not 
yet confounded. It is still the weak. As yet 
those of our converts who have any property are, 
usually, in some way, stripped of it all, on em- 
bracing Jesus Christ as their Saviour. In few of 
our up-country congregations is the average total 
income of our members equal to seven dollars 
per month, while in hosts of our small village 
congregations the total income, per family, is not 
twenty-five dollars per year. And in these last 
three famine years often the village catechist, or 
pastor, himself on a salary of from three to six 
dollars per month for self and family, has had, 
out of that sum, to keep a pot of conjee, or 
gruel, boiling all the day, to deal out a little to 
the hungry or starving of his flock, or of in- 
quirers. 

What does retrenchment mean in India ? I 
will give you a few composite photographs taken 

183 



The Cobra's Den 

from those working in different missions, and 
from these safe general conclusions may be 
drawn, without a tedious array of statistics. 

THE DISAPPOINTED HOPE 

*'Good news, wife, good news," called Mr. 
G., as he sprang from the horse on which he had 
ridden twenty-three miles from a trip in the dis- 
trict. "The people of three hamlets near Kotur 
have given up their idols, pledged themselves to 
observe the Sabbath, and to obey all Christian 
teachings so fast as they are taught them. They 
promise to send their children to school to learn 
to read the Bible and Christian books, and 1 have 
promised to give them two teachers, for two of 
the hamlets are near each other, and one school 
will do for both. They are in hereditary servi- 
tude to the head man of the neighbouring caste 
town, and are wretchedly poor, but they seem to 
be really in earnest. We shall get hold of their 
children, even if we do not make very intelligent 
Christians out of the older people. Now if that 
extra $200 that I asked for in the new year's ap- 
propriation comes, it will just cover the abso- 
lutely necessary outlay in these three villages, 
and in the two that I received last month, 
eighteen miles south. There is evidently a 

184 



How the "Cut" Cuts 

movement toward Christianity among these 
down-trodden people, and if we can only pro- 
vide them with teachers, we shall see a grand in- 
gathering. Thank God for giving us this open- 
ing, for which we have long been praying and 
working." 

His wife tried to look glad, but failed, as she 
led him in for the cup of tea and slice of toast 
she had prepared since seeing him come over the 
knoll a mile away, and until he had had this re- 
freshment she would not tell him of the home 
mail, with its freight of crushing news that had 
come during his absence. 

• He needed the refreshment, for even then his 
hands trembled as he held the letter and read the 
imperative orders for a ten per cent, retrench- 
ment on the last year's expenditure, instead of 
his hoped-for expansion, and then, putting his 
head on his hands, the strong man sobbed. 
"Then these seekers to whom 1 have promised 
the bread of life must go back and feed on their 
old ashes. O God, what does Thy Church 
mean thus to play fast and loose with thirsty 
souls ? — to send me to proclaim in all this dis- 
trict ' Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to 
the waters,' and then strike the cup of the water 
of life from their lips as they bend to drink. 

185 



The Cobra's Den 

Merciful Jesus, show Thy Church what they are 
doing." 

THE ABANDONED MISSION SCHOOL 

The heart of Mr. K., missionary at Tenevur, 
had been greatly gladdened two years before, by 
the reception of a petition from the town of 
Bibinagar, twenty miles west, signed by the 
leading inhabitants, Brahmans, merchants, arti- 
sans, farmers, begging him to take under his 
charge, as a mission school, an Anglo-vernacular 
school which they had established a few years 
before for the education of their sons. They ex- 
pressed their perfect willingness to have him in- 
troduce the Bible, as a text-book, in each class, 
every day, for they had noticed that the study of 
the Bible elevated the character of those who 
studied it, even though they did not become 
Christians. 

He found these people in earnest. The fees 
paid by the boys entirely supplied the salaries of 
the present masters. The missionary put in bet- 
ter teachers and added a new Bible master. In 
two years the people had grown to appreciate 
the school so much that higher fees could be 
collected. But, with the Bible master, it still 
required $ioo per year from mission funds to 
keep it up. It was worth it. Christianity was 

186 



How the "Cut" Cuts 

gaining its first footliold in tliat town, in that 
falulc, or county. The people were listening with 
respect, and attention, and interest, to the weekly 

^'iheT^a heavy letter came from the Home 
Board; heavy with heartache. "Retrenchment, 
immediate, must be made at all the stations. 
The proportion falling on Tenevflr was Rs. 
, 000 (three hundred dollars). Sadly Mr K. 
went over every expenditure, cut off Rs. 50 here, 
75 there, .00 in another place; dismissed three 
natives agents, though they knew of no other 
employment; and yet there was Rs. 300 (one 
hundred dollars) more that must be cut off. No 
other way could be found. The Bibinagar 
school had to be given up. The Bible teacher 
was obliged to leave. It was reorganised as a 
heathen school, and Bibinagar was enveloped in 
its pristine darkness. 

THRUST BACK INTO HEATHENISM 

"Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible 
tells me so," sang Sikamani, (Crown-jewel) the 
little Brahman girl, as she entered her fathers 
house from Miss v. R.'s caste girls' school in 
Singaparam, and her musical voice rang through 
the zenana apartments. 

187 



The Cobra's Den 

" Here, my lotus blossom, what is that you are 
singing ? Who is Jesus ? and what is the Bible ? " 
asked her kindly-faced grandmother. "Come 
and sit down, and tell us all about it." 

It was a leisure hour, and all the zenana women 
gathered and, seated on the mats around, listened 
while little "Crown-jewel" sang more of the 
beautiful songs Miss v. R. had taught them, in 
their own vernaculars. Then she told them all 
she had learned about that loving Jesus "who 
died that we all, yes, we women too, may be 
saved." Daily in this Brahman's home, in mer- 
chants' and artisans' homes, were such scenes 
witnessed since Miss v. R. had, one year before, 
opened the first Hindu girls' school in all that 
region. The school had filled its building in the 
Brahman street, and Miss v. R. had just engaged 
to rent another in the Goldsmiths' street, and 
open another school, and already scores of pupils 
had made application to be received. 

Miss V. R. had come home joyously from com- 
pleting the arrangements, making melody in her 
heart unto the Lord for giving her such opportu- 
nities, for she was already getting an entrance 
into one and another of her pupils' homes, to 
talk with their mothers and aunts. On her table 
lay the evening letters. One, from the secretary 

188 



How the "Cut" Cuts 

of the mission, she seized, opened, read, and 
sank into a chair, while disappointment and de- 
spair, too dry for tears, shook her slender frame. 
" KiUing retrenchments ordered from home. No 
appropriation for Hindu girls' school. Must 
close them all from end of next month." That 
school cost Rs. 22^, or $73 per year. The new 
one would cost the same. But the home church 
was too poor to afford the I150, so the order had 
come as to all those Hindu homes into which the 
light was beginning to steal, '' Shut out the light, 
shut in the darkness." 

DR. ANNA AND HER PATIENTS 

Dr. Anna B., sent out five years before, had 
opened out a very fine and desperately needed 
medical work in Bilanagar. Her hospital with 
twenty beds for in-patients was always filled, 
while the hundred out-patients daily were blessed 
with her medicines, her skill, and her prayers. 
The seeds of the kingdom were daily sown in 
hundreds of grateful souls. Some seemed ger- 
minating. More patients were begging for treat- 
ment than she could possibly receive on her 
appropriations. She had sent a strong appeal 
for an increase in funds, and an assistant or as- 
sociate, as the work was more than she could 

189 



The Cobra's Den 

do. "Impossible. Funds not coming in. Can- 
not keep up even present appropriations. Re- 
trench fifteen per cent, from January ist. Im- 
perative." 

Sick at heart she went over every expendi- 
ture to see where she could possibly cut down. 
Medicines and necessaries for treatment must be 
had. A small reduction was possible in a few 
minor points, but on "diets of in-patients" must 
nearly the whole reduction fall. There was no 
help for it. Hereafter but ten of the twenty beds 
could be filled, for the people coming from dis- 
tant villages were ail too poor to provide food 
for themselves away from home. Ten beds 
were packed away, as they were vacated. The 
remaining ten were all filled with important 
cases, and Dr. Anna prayed for a hard heart, to 
enable her to refuse others. 

"Will the dear lady doctor please come and 
see a dying woman in Kullur, four miles north ? " 
A young mother, fourteen years old, whom na- 
tive midwives had horribly maltreated, from 
want of skill and knowledge, was what she 
found. Her life might still be saved by the ut- 
most skill and care, if she could be placed in a 
hospital, not otherwise. " Bring her in on her 
bed. I will try." Half-way back and Dr. Anna 

190 



How the "Cut" Cuts 

was stopped at a hamlet to see a young girl, ter- 
ribly gored by a bull. " Bring her in too." As 
she neared the hospital a woman wrapped in a 
blanket tied as a hammock to a long bamboo, 
and ''borne of four," was laid on the veranda of 
the hospital, with a foot dropping off from gan- 
grene, the result of the bite of a poisonous, but 
not deadly, serpent. The love of Jesus pulsed 
in Dr. Anna's heart. She could not say no. 
"Take her in," and so of two others equally 
needy who came. But how were they to be 
fed? 

Dr. Anna had already devoted all she could 
spare from her small salary to purchase addi- 
tional medicines for the growing throngs of out- 
patients. Now, to feed these, her suffering sis- 
ters while they were being healed, she gave up 
the more expensive articles in her own diet, 
meat, eggs, fruit, etc., and struggled on, giving 
her every energy to her increasing number of 
patients, and working harder, if possible, even 
on her unnourishing diet. Months thus sped by. 
One morning she fainted at her work, and fell 
upon the masonry floor of her hospital. An ad- 
jacent missionary was hastily called. An English 
doctor of experience and skill came from the 
large town near. ''Nervous prostration and 

191 



The Cobra's Den 

threatening paralysis, from overstrain and lack 
of nourishment. Must be put on the first steamer 
and sent home as the only hope," was his un- 
hesitating verdict. 

Her Board had saved $ioo by the cut, and paid 
$200 to take home poor wrecked Dr. Anna B. 
The sick were deserted, and the hospital closed. 
The murmur went around the home land, "What 
a mysterious Providence that strong and vigorous 
Dr. Anna B. should be stricken down after only 
six years of service, and just when she was most 
needed." 

These incidents occurred in no one mission, in 
no one year. But they are true illustrations of 
what are the terrible burdens put upon her mis- 
sionaries by the wholesale cuts ordered by the 
home church, in ignorance, let us hope, of the 
havoc they sometimes necessitate. Only a few 
of the actual workings of retrenchment have 
been pictured, for my heart is too heavy to gaze 
further myself, or open to the gaze of others all 
that a ten, twenty or thirty per cent, reduction 
involves. For here and there, in this mission 
and that, it means all that I have pictured, and 
more. 

Retrenchment means the dismissing of faithful 

193 



How the "Cut" Cuts 

catechists in half-instructed little village congre- 
gations of those too poor and hungry themselves 
to feed the catechist and his family. It means 
the sending away of Bible women, and zenana 
workers who are gaining an entrance, or are 
eagerly welcomed in many houses where ''the 
Sweetest Name" is beginning to be lisped. It 
means the closing of scores of day-schools at- 
tended by the worshippers of Vishnu or fol- 
lowers of Mohammed, who, in those schools, 
are daily reading and learning the teachings of 
the Nazarene. It means the giving up of preach- 
ing tours in " the regions beyond," with glad in- 
vitations to the gospel feast. It means the clos- 
ing or cutting down of schools for training young 
men and young women to be the Timothys, and 
the Loises, yes, the Barnabases and Pauls of the 
militant church of Christ in India. It means the 
sending out word to all seeking communities who 
are too poor to pay for a teacher. "Don't give 
up your idols and avow yourselves Christians 
now, for we can send no one to teach you how 
to find and follow Jesus! " 

O Christ, who seest Thy crippled work. Thy 
delayed chariot in India, rouse, rouse Thy people 
to a just appreciation of what they themselves 
owe to Thee; of what Thou dost expect of them. 

193 



The Cobra's Den 

Summon with insistent, with resistless voice, 
those redeemed by Thee to become Thy working- 
partners in that stupendous work, the salvation 
of a sin-lost world. 



194 



XIX 

HOW HINDU CHRISTIANS GIVE* 

There are a few peculiar facts in connection 
with the work carried on by your missionaries 
in India which the Church at home should know. 
There has hitherto been a misunderstanding in 
the matter. It is time that it was corrected. 
The matter that I refer to is the benevolence of 
our native churches in India. 

I have been asked by ministers of our church 
within the past few weeks, 

"Why is it that the native churches in India 
do so little in the way of benevolence and self- 
support ? Do not the last minutes of the General 
Synod report the whole contributions of the 
churches of the Classis, or Presbytery, of Arcot 
for these purposes to be only I996.00?" 

Upon my replying that they are not backward 
in their benevolence in proportion to their means, 
the further question was asked, 

" Do no men of means join you among your 
converts ? " 

^An address before the General Synod of the Reformed 
(Dutch) Church at New Brunswick, N. J., June 7, i886. 

195 



The Cobra's Den 

It is to the peculiar facts connected with the 
solution of the first of these questions that I now 
ask your attention. The second will be answered 
later on. 

The difference in the real value of money in 
India and America is the first of these facts. 

I hold before you two coins. The one is a 
silver dollar, the other is a dime. You notice the 
difference in size, you know the difference in 
value. You will doubtless be surprised when I 
tell you that in purchasing power of food, of 
clothing, and of labour among the natives, the 
dime in India is worth fully as much as, if not 
more than, the dollar in America, and this fact 
must be taken into account in estimating the real 
benevolence of the native churches. But first let 
me explain the facts. 

I said that the dime in India is worth as much 
as the dollar in America in procuring the food, 
clothing, and labour of natives. To prevent mis- 
understanding I must, however, here premise 
that it is not so as regards the necessaries of life 
for Europeans. It has been proved by experi- 
ments, costly in life and health, that Europeans 
cannot live in India as natives do. They cannot 
live in native houses, dress in native clothing, 
and live on native food without loss of life, or of 

196 



How Hindu Christians Give 

health. We must, if we would retain vigour for 
successful work, live somewhat in the style, and 
have somewhat of the comforts, to which we 
have been accustomed at home. But the moment 
that we step outside of the native diet, articles of 
food become expensive. Our clothing, or ma- 
terials for it, must all be brought out from Eng- 
land, France or America, and on it we must pay 
freight, duty and commission. So of books, 
periodicals, newspapers, and all the numberless 
little necessaries and comforts of life. Thus, 
alas, to your missionaries in India the dollar if 
worth, in very many things, much less than thv 
dollar at home. 

But among natives it is different. The equiva- 
lent of a dime counts more in wages in India 
than the dollar in America. In Arcot, Vellore, 
and Chittoor, the best bricklayers, the best 
masons, the best carpenters can be hired for 
twenty-five cents a day. Will multiplying by 
ten secure you the labour of masons and car- 
penters here ? Harvest hands will work all day 
in India for from six to nine cents, and board 
themselves. You must multiply by twenty to 
secure hands for your harvest fields in America. 
The cooly women will work all day in the fields 
or in the house for from three to five cents per 

197 



The Cobra's Den 

day. I pay my gardener and water-carrier $2.75 
per month, and he boards himself, and that is 
considered good wages. I can hire a man with 
oxen and cart for $7.50 per month, and he boards 
himself and feeds his oxen. The teachers of 
many of our village schools receive a salary of 
but $30 to $36 per year, to support themselves 
and family. Our highest paid native pastors re- 
ceive but $150 salary. Not more than two re- 
ceive that. The most of our native preachers or 
catechists receive from $60 to $90 per year. 

So much for wages. The cost of living is in 
proportion. I remember a fairly educated single 
man, who had recently come to Madanapalle for 
employment, appealing to me in trouble, saying 
that they asked exorbitantly for board there, and 
that he could not stay. 1 asked him how much 
he had to pay. He told me, with great indigna- 
tion, that they had the face to charge him $1.75 
per month for his board, and that he had never 
paid so high in his life before! 

As for clothing; a fairly well-to-do man's suit, 
complete, will cost from $2 to I3, and a woman's 
from $1.75 to I2.50. Rich men and women 
dress extravagantly there as here. Our native 
preachers make their pastoral calls and preach in 
suits costing not over I3 to $4. The wedding 

198 



How Hindu Christians Give 

trousseau of the bride of a native preacher usu- 
ally costs not more than from |io to $14. A 
student can be educated in the Arcot Academy or 
the Female Seminary for from $30 to I40 per 
year, according to age, and that includes board, 
clothing, books, tuition and incidentals. Many a 
father would be glad to have his son's expenses 
here come within ten times that amount. 

You will see at once that the income and the 
expenditure of our native Christians in India must 
be multiplied by ten to approximate at all to in- 
come and expenditure among our churches in 
America. You must apply the same rule to their 
benevolence, when comparing it with the benevo- 
lence of our home churches. If in this light you 
will look at the statistical tables in the last min- 
utes of General Synod, you will see that the 
benevolent contributions of the churches in the 
Arcot Mission are not small. 

The Classis of Arcot is young, and not yet 
strong. Let us compare its contributions with 
some of the country Classes of the Church at 
home. For this purpose I have taken one Classis 
from the Synod of New York, one from the 
Synod of Albany, one from the Synod of Chicago, 
and one from the Synod of New Brunswick. 
Each of these Classes is older than the Classis of 

199 



The Cobra's Den 

Arcot. The four Classes I have chosen (one 
from each Synod) aggregate 6,857 communicants, 
and their contributions for '•' Religious and Benev- 
olent Purposes " (not for the support of their own 
ministry), as given in the table, aggregate $5,- 
309.87, or 77>^ cents per member, on the average. 

In the same table you will see it stated that the 
Classis of Arcot, with its 1,582 members, gave 
for the same purposes $511, which is equal to ^lyz 
cents per member, or if you multiply by ten, as is 
only fair from the above showing, you will find 
that their real benevolence is equivalent to %3.2} 
per member, or more than four time.« +hat of the 
American Classes just mentioned. 

But in order that we may understand what the 

native benevolence really is, and what self-denial 

it requires, let us take a single church in the 

Classis of Arcot, and analyse its benevolence, and 

the resources of its members. For this purpose I 

take the church of Madanapalle, because I know 

its benevolence, and the circumstances of its 

members better than I do those of any other 

church in the Classis of Arcot. That you may 

verify my statements, I take the report of the 

Board of Foreign Missions for this last year, 

1885-6, which has just been laid before Synod, 

and which is now in your hands. In the statis- 

200 



How Hindu Christians Give 

tical table of the Arcot Mission you will find it 
stated that the Church of Madanapalle, with its 
seventy-four communicants, contributed for all 
purposes Rs. 275. The rupee is worth just a 
half-dollar in silver, and for all purposes of com- 
parison, both in expenditure and income, I have 
reckoned two rupees to the dollar. Thus calcu- 
lated, the contributions of the native church of 
Madanapalle for 1885 would be $132.50 for the 
seventy-four communicants. 

Now, who are these seventy-four members, 
and what are their circumstances ? I know them 
well. The average income of fifty-five of them 
would not be over $30 per year. That of ten 
others is over $48 and under |6o. That of eight 
others is over |6o and not over $100. Only one 
member of that church has an income of over 
|ioo, and his is $162. The total yearly income 
of these seventy-four members would then be: 

55 averaging . . .130 = 11,650.00 

10 " . . . .54= 540.00 

8 " , . . .72= 576.00 

I .... 162= 162.00 



Total yearly income . . 12,928.00 

Divide this total yearly income among the 
seventy-four church members, and you will have 
the average yearly income of I39.57 per member. 



201 



The Cobra's Den 

and yet they give for benevolent and church pur- 
poses 1 1. 85 per member, or nearly one-twentieth 
of the total income of the members. 

Can you show me one single church in our 
whole communion in America that gives one- 
hundredth of the income of its members for be- 
nevolent and church purposes ? If you can, I 
will go directly to that church and present the 
missionary cause, assured of a rousing collection. 

In the Board's Report, it is stated by Dr. Wil- 
liam Scudder, the resident missionary, that the 
Madanapalle church has been employing and pay- 
ing the salary of Abraham Nannia Sahib,— the 
convert from Mohammedanism, — in evangelistic 
work among the Hindus and Mohammedans of 
the ''region beyond." He is the missionary of 
that church, solely supported by them. 

Out of the total contributions of Rs. 275 
spoken of above, this little church, only lately 
gathered in a heathen land, pays to the Pastors' 
Fund the equivalent of one-half of the salary of 
the Senior Catechist (the unordained native 
preacher in charge of the church), and supports 
its own missionary among the heathen beyond, 
and over and above this, contributes out of their 
poverty |i.o8 per member to outside benevo- 
lence. 

202 



How Hindu Christians Give 

In the minutes of Synod before referred to, it 
is shown that the 83,702 members of the Re- 
formed Church gave last year $233,996.46 for 
" Religious and Benevolent Purposes," aside from 
the support of their own churches. This makes 
an average of $2.80 per communicant for the 
whole Reformed Church. By the side of this, 
place the |i.o8 per member actually given for 
outside benevolence by the church at Madana- 
palle, and then multiply it by ten, as shown 
above, to find their real comparative benevolence, 
and you will have your Hindu Christians giving 
the equivalent of |io.8o per member, per year, as 
against the $2.80 per member of the church in 
America. 

Will my friend who asked the question a few 
weeks ago ask again: "Why is it that the na- 
tive churches in India do so little in the way of 
benevolence and self-support ? " 

Does not the Classis of Arcot, tried by the 
above standard, the rather stand out as the Ban- 
ner Classis of our whole communion ? I have 
spoken only of the church at Madanapalle, but 
the church at Tindivanam and other churches in 
our mission would make nearly the same show- 
ing had we the data to work them up. 

How is this amount raised among these com- 

203 



The Cobra's Den 

paratively moneyless people ? Our Christians 
give until they feel it. The senior catechist at 
Madanapalle, who has been supported for twenty- 
three years by the Sabbath-school of the church 
in Kinderhook, N. Y., and who receives only 
$100 salary, always gives in benevolence one- 
tenth, and often one-eighth of his income, as I 
well know. He has a family of eight children. 
One of the higher paid native pastors in our mis- 
sion, who receives nearly $150 per year salary, 
makes one-tenth his minimum, and often gives 
one-eighth or one-seventh of his income to the 
Lord. 

Scores of our native Christians loyally make 
one-tenth their minimum in giving, and those 
who have no money give in substance. In many 
of our Christian families in the villages who have 
no money to give, the mother, with the consent 
of the family, takes out a handful of the allotted 
grain as she prepares the daily meal, and when 
Sunday comes makes the family offering unto the 
Lord in kind. 

The pupils of some of our boarding-schools 
agree to go without a part of the scanty portion 
of meat that is allowed them only on certain 
days of the week, and jointly contribute the 
price of the meat saved in the collection on Sun- 

204 



How Hindu Christians Give 

day In other of our schools, when the rice is 
tal^en out for the midday meal by the cook one 
of the pupils goes, by appointment of the others, 
and takes out so many gills of the rice and puts 
it into the treasury basket, and on Saturday it is 
sold and the avails divided around to be put in 
the collection on the morrow. 

At a missionary meeting at which 1 was pres- 
ent as we were raising missionary money, one 
member said: "I have no money that 1 can 
give but 1 have a new milch cow; I will spare 
one-third of all the milk she gives until she goes 
dry if any one will agree to take it daily, and 
put' the value in money in the missionary collec- 
tion " The milk was at once bespoken, and that 
cow gave milk well and long that year. A 
widow woman took off her choicest " toe-nng 
(for they use them there as much as finger rings), 
and put it in the contribution box. It was pur- 
chased for half a dollar, and that sum went into 
the box as the widow's gift. 

And other widows give until we sometimes 
hesitate to take all that they bring to consecrate 
to the Lord. Our native Christians are not all 
liberal. There are some in India as well as in 
America who seem to wish to get everything 
from Christ and give nothing to Him. But your 

205 



The Cobra's Den 

missionaries strive, both by precept and by ex- 
ample, to teach them the blessedness of giving 
for the Lord's work until they feel it. I know of 
no missionary who does not consecrate at least 
one-tenth of his small income to the Lord, and 
we try to bring all our converts up to the same 
standard; and of very many in our churches we 
can joyfully say, as did Paul of the churches in 
Macedonia, *'For to their power, I bear record; 
yea, and beyond their power they are willing of 
themselves; for their deep poverty abounded 
unto the riches of their liberality." 

When this matter is fairly understood the 
Hindu native churches will no longer be chided 
for the meagreness of their contributions. 



206 



XX 

A MERCHANT OF MEANS JOINS US 

The second question asked by my interroga- 
tor as mentioned in the last chapter was, ''Do 
no men of means join you? How is it that 
your native churches in India are financially so 

weak?" 

Yes, some men of substance have joined us, 
but their substance has not. In every case where 
men of position and property have become Chris- 
tians in our mission, they have suffered the loss 
of all things. I could give a number of instances 
to illustrate this. I will give but one and that 

briefly. 

Bala Chetti, a merchant of Palmaner, was con- 
verted in 1865, under Dr. Silas Scudder, then the 
missionary there. An account of the conversion 
is given in the annual report of the mission for 
that year. Bala Chetti was a well-to-do mer- 
chant of the town, of high caste and extensive 
family connections. He was one of several 
brothers who held an undivided ancestral estate, 
and carried on their business in common. He 
had been an inquirer for some months. 

207 



The Cobra's Den 

He finally broke his caste and became a Chris- 
tian. A mob collected, armed with various weap- 
ons, seeking to kill him. He eluded them and 
escaped to the mission premises. On Sunday, 
when he went to church with the missionary to 
be baptised, the carriage in which they went had 
to be guarded by the police. The church was 
surrounded and taken possession of by the mob. 
Only He who restraineth the wrath of man could, 
and He did restrain that mob. Bala Chetti took 
refuge, for a time, at the mission house. When 
the excitement was somewhat over, he went to 
his house in the town. His wife had, before 
this, when he first became a Christian, spat upon 
him, and gone home to her parents, taking their 
only son with her. 

He now found that his brothers had walled up 
with masonry the entrance to his part of the large 
common residence. He could only get in by 
climbing over the barred scullery gate in the rear. 
He found it deserted and empty. He wished to 
continue with his brothers in the management of 
their bazaar. They spat upon him in the streets, 
and would not let ''this dog of a Christian" 
enter their place of business. Foiled in this, he 
brought suit in the Civil Court for the division of 
the paternal estate, that he might take his share 

208 



A Merchant of Means Joins Us 

and do business alone, if they would not allow 
him to keep on with them. 

His brothers brought in forged documents and 
suborned witnesses to swear that he had already 
drawn out and squandered the whole of his share 
of the estate. Not a witness could be found to 
testify for this ''renegade and outcast." They 
dared not. The judge openly said he suspected 
the documents to be forged and the witnesses 
false, but there was no rebutting testimony, and 
the case went against him, and his property, that 
might have been a help to the Christian church, 
was all gone. 

After a time he brought suit in court for the 
recovery of his wife. She was summoned and 
appeared at the District Court presided over by 
an English judge. She was asked if she would 
return to him? '*No." 

Had he not been a kind husband ? " Yes." 

Had he ever abused her or neglected to provide 
for her and their son ? ''Never." 

Why would she not return to him then ? "Go 
with that Christian dog! Never! " 

Did he not love her and did she not love him ? 
" Yes, before he became a renegade to his ances- 
tral faith ; but now he was dead, so far as she 
was concerned." 

909 



The Cobra's Den 

He lost his wife and child and brothers and 
house and lands and property for Christ's sake 
and the gospel's. All was gone but his faith in 
Christ, but to that he held firm. 

He remained for a time with the missionary, 
studying the Bible. He could not again be a 
merchant. He had been boycotted; nobody 
would buy of him, and besides his capital was 
all gone. To gain a livelihood he enlisted in the 
government police, under a Christian officer. 
That he might be free from continual insults and 
persecutions he was sent to a distant district. 
The cholera swept throught that district, and 
Bala Chetti was taken up. His old friends said, 
**What a wreck!" They little knew his eternal 
reward. 

From this one representative case you will see 
how it is that the Church of Christ in newly- 
entered districts in India is still poor; why our 
churches must still be helped. But the leaven is 
working. It is working among the higher classes 
as well as among the low. The time is coming, 
it draws near, when multitudes from all classes 
and castes will join us, and bring their substance 
with them. Till then let the Church of Christ in 
Christian countries throw in her help in no stinted 
measure, and, by the aid of God's spirit, the en- 

310 



A Merchant of Means Joins Us 

ginery will be produced that will roll through 
India and carry it all for Christ. 

" I gave My life for thee, 

My precious blood I shed 
That thou might'st ransomed be, 

And quickened from the dead. 
I gave My life for thee, 

What hast thou giv'n for Me ? " 



m 



XXI 

"BREAK COCOANUTS OVER THE WHEELS" 

We had recently located in the heathen town 
of Madanapalle, India, to commence missionary 
work there. The time for the annual drawing 
of the great idol car through the streets of the 
town and by the banks of the river had come. 
Multitudes of votaries from all the villages around, 
as well as from every street of the town had as- 
sembled before the car. Great rope cables were 
attached. Hundreds caught hold of the ropes. 
Up went the shout, * ' Hari ! Hari ! Hayi ! Jayam ! " 
"Vishnu! Vishnu! Joy and Victory! " "Now 
pull,'' shouted the priests, and off went the 
three-storied car majestically through the streets, 
amid the joyous shouts of the thousands of 
spectators. On they followed it to the river 
bank. Libations were brought and poured over 
the car, and the multitudinous ceremonies per- 
formed. 

Again, with similar shouts, they began the 
progress around by different streets, back to the 
great temple before which the car always reposed 

312 




HINDU POTTERS AT THEIR WORK 




A GROUP OF HINDUS AT DINNER 



"Break Cocoanuts Over the Wheels" 

for the year. Half-way back and the car came 
to a stand. 

"Pull," shouted the priests. Pull they did. 
The ropes snapped with the strain. All the 
wheels were examined; no stones were in the 
way; everything seemed right. The ropes were 
tied and new ones added. More votaries caught 
the ropes. " All pull," shouted the priests. All 
bent to the effort. It would not move. 

A pallor came over the crowd. *'The god is 
angry and will not let his chariot move," was 
whispered along the streets. A feeling of dread 
shivered through the multitude. * ' Yes, " shouted 
the Chief Priest from the car, " the god is angry. 
He will not move unless you propitiate him. 
Run all of you and bring cocoanuts and break 
over the wheels, and as the fragrant cocoanut 
milk runs down over the wheels the god will ac- 
cept the libation and graciously allow his chariot 
to move on again. Run, and each bring a cocoa- 
nut. Run!" 

Men and boys ran for the cocoanuts ; the resi- 
dents to their houses, the villagers to the bazaars 
to buy, or to their friends' houses to borrow. 
Each came back with his cocoanut, and broke it 
over one of the wheels. The cocoanut milk ran 
along the streets. 

213 



The Cobra's Den 

"Hayi! Jayam," shouted the priests. "The 
god is now propitious." "Hayi! Jayam!" 
* ' Joy ! Victory ! " shouted the multitude. * ' Now, 
PULL ALL," shouted the priests. The people took 
heart; dread passed away; confidence came. 
They seized the ropes and, with a shout that re- 
sounded in the hills a mile away, they gave a 
pull. Off went the car, and soon, with singing 
and dancing, they had it back in its wonted 
place. And as the crowd scattered to their vil- 
lage homes, the news ran through the country: 
"The car got set; they could not move it a fin- 
ger-breadth ; but each man brought a cocoanut 
and broke over the wheels, and then on it went 
with a rush to the temple." 

I could not help recalling this incident the 
other night as I read the important Financial 
Statement laid by the Secretary of the Foreign 
Board before the recent missionary convention. 

God's chariot is delayed. His Chariot of Sal- 
vation had started in its course in towns of India 
and China and Japan through the agency of the 
Reformed Church. Have the people lost heart, 
that it stands still .^ Has discouragement come 
upon us ? 

"Run for the cocoanuts." Let each man and 

boy, let each woman and each child bring what 

314 



"Break Cocoanuts Over the Wheels" 

would be to them the equivalent in value of a 
cocoanut to the poor Hindu, as an offering to the 
Lord, and the chariot will move joyously on. 

Had one rich Hindu given a thousand cocoa- 
nuts to break over the wheels of the idol car, and 
the multitude not given any, the effect would not 
have been at all the same. Each one of the 
throng made an offering. Each one felt that he 
had a share in it. Each one took courage. Each 
one shouted. Each one pulled and on went the 
car. 

The missionary chariot halts. Many villages 
are pleading for a missionary or a native preacher. 
Young men and women, eight of them, are offer- 
ing to go out to the different missions. Heathen 
schools are offered to the missionary to introduce 
the Bible in. Young converts ask to be trained 
to be preachers to their kindred. Every mail 
tells our Board of onward steps that should be 
taken. The Board cannot reply, *'Go on," for 
debt stares them grimly in the face. 

Shall this continue so ? Dare we let the Lord's 
chariot halt.? Oh, that every one of the 80,000 
members of the Reformed Church, every one of 
the 90,000 children enrolled in our Sunday schools, 
every one of the 200,000 adherents, who enjoy the 
weekly ministrations of our sanctuaries here in 

215 



The Cobra's Den 

this gospel land, would hasten to bring in an 
offering if not more than the value of a cocoanut, 
and then with a heart in the work they would 
unitedly send up a paean of praise and a shout of 
Joy and Victory, and God would be pleased and 
His chariot would move on right gloriously. 

In one respect our illustration fails; for here 
the well-to-do disciple may give his hundreds 
and the rich his thousands, and, they will help 
on as only hundreds and thousands can. 

Here it is not a limited number of cocoanuts 
that can be used. It is not one chariot that is 
delayed. The wheels are set in Tokyo and Yoko- 
hama and Nagasaki; in Amoy and Sio-ke; in 
Tindivanam and Chittoor and Madanapalle; and 
new chariots should be put in motion in other 
places. Let the well-to-do send in their cocoa- 
nuts in cooly loads and cart loads, and elephant 
loads, aye and ship loads, for there is need of all. 
Let each one, man, woman and child, bring in 
his offering even as God has prospered him, and 
bring it with the gladsome shout of one alive to 
his privilege and expecting victory. 

Our harvests have been plentiful. Let us put 
God to the proof. " Bring ye all the tithes into 
the storehouse, and prove me now herewith, 
saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open the 

216 



"Break Cocoanuts Over the Wheels" 

windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing 
that there shall not be room enough to receive 
it." 

Let the cocoanuts come. Who brings the 
first ? What church sends one for every man, 
woman and child on its roll ? Who sends the 
cooly load ? Who the elephant load ? Who the 
ship load ? *' Please answer soon." 



217 



XXII 

THE WEAVING OF INDIA RUGS, OR GOD'S PLAN IN OUR 

LIVES ^ 

' In complying with the request of the Classis of 
New Brunswick that I should be the one to give 
the charge to you to-day, I find so many mem- 
ories crowding upon me, so many conflicting 
emotions filling my mind, so many joyous an- 
ticipations taking possession of my soul, that I 
find it difficult to choose fitting words with 
which to fulfill the pleasing duty that is laid upon 
me. 

For memory takes me back at a single step 
over the intervening space, as I so vividly recall 
the scene when, just twenty-seven years ago, 
my much loved Hebrew preceptor, since then 
your venerated College President,^ gave similar 
words of counsel when he preached the sermon 
at my ordination as a missionary to India, and 
joined then in laying hands of consecration on 
my head, as he has now done on yours. 

1 The charge at the ordination of William I. Chamberlain as 
missionary to India, in Rutgers College Chapel, June 20, 
1886. 

2 Rev. William H. Campbell, D. D., LL. D. 

218 



The Weaving of India Rugs 

Twenty-seven years of blessed service for the 
Master! How packed with labours and with 
joys! For, in looking back over these years of 
missionary service, it is not the hardships and 
trials, but the blessings and joys that fill my 
vision, and to this blessed heritage of service for 
the Master do I now bid you welcome with un- 
feigned gladness. 

And what should be the spirit with which you 
enter upon this life service for Christ in India ? 
What should be your highest aspiration ? What 
shall give you your surest success, your suprem- 
est joy in that work ? 

I desire to place before you in this solemn 
hour as at once your highest aim and your most 
potent weapon, ''Personal Conformity to the 
Image of Christ." 

Paul in the eighth chapter of Romans, de- 
clares that we are called of God **to be con- 
formed to the image of His Son," and he speaks 
of this as a growing conformity, as in the third 
chapter of Second Corinthians, where he says, 
"We are changed into the same image from 
glory to glory." And the beloved John tells us 
what shall be the consummation, when he says 
in his First Epistle, third chapter, "When He 
shall appear we shall be like Him," 

219 



The Cobra's Den 

This becoming conformed to the image of 
Christ is a gradual process. The change begins 
with regeneration. That is indeed instantaneous. 
It is then that the germ of conformity to the im- 
age of Christ is implanted, but unless it grows it 
remains but a germ. Regeneration is instanta- 
neous. Sanctification is progressive. And as we 
grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ we grow into con- 
formity to His image. 

For this growth in conformity to His image 
the continual aid of the Holy Spirit is absolutely 
necessary, but it also requires persistent and 
earnest personal effort on the part of the be- 
liever, and to such effort after personal conform- 
ity to the image of Christ, would I now seek to 
incite you more and more, as you enter upon 
your life of service for Him. 

Such growth into Christ's pattern is not easy 
work. It is not, with most of us, an uninter- 
rupted growth. There is sometimes even retro- 
gression, and we become disheartened, and 
think we can never attain, and are almost ready 
to give up trying. 

I have thought of this struggle to imitate the 
Divine pattern as I have stood watching the slow 
weaving of those beautiful India rugs which, 

220 



The Weaving of India Rugs 

when completed, are so much sought after and 
so highly prized. 

India rugs are all the product of painstaking, 
long continued hand labour, requiring closest 
watchfulness at every step, lest the figure be 
not perfect. I have often stood watching the 
workmen and thinking of God's plan in our 
lives. 

The rug, however large it be, is woven in one 
piece. The warp is stretched vertically upon the 
simple loom. There is no shuttle. There is no 
beam. The weaver sits or stands facing the per- 
pendicular warp. The only light in the room is 
from a window behind the weaver, shining over 
his shoulders full upon the growing rug before 
him. With deft fingers he runs in the different 
coloured woolen yarns into the warp in front of 
him, and, with a heavy wooden comb, combs it 
down to its place, and with hand-shears clips off the 
too long protruding yarn. As you stand behind 
his back, and at one side out of his light, watching 
him, he goes on, apparently forgetful of your 
presence, chanting to himself from memory the 
pattern he is weaving in as he swiftly inserts the 
threads, "six black, three brown, five red, seven 
white," and so on, as the hours go by. Now and 
then, as he completes a figure, or part of one, he 



The Cobra's Den 

steps back to take a look and see if it is perfect ; 
but, alas, he has made a slip. 

Some inches down, where he has not been 
giving due heed, his pattern is marred. Heaving 
a sigh, he again takes his place, and laboriously 
takes out the last half hour's, or last half day's 
work, and more carefully builds it over, for it 
must be perfect or it will not be accepted. 

I have looked in one day and the rug seemed 
progressing finely, but the next there seemed to 
have been absolutely retrogression, so much had 
been taken out to remedy a just discovered de- 
fect ; but it goes on to final completion. 

I have myself seen one rug six months upon the 
same loom, and the weavers had been working 
upon it day by day, and all day long. Orders 
were on hand that would take them two full 
years to fill, but the process could not be hurried, 
or defects were sure to creep in. 

Sometimes, as you looked in, you would see 
something out of harmony ; you could not tell 
what it was, but felt that something was wrong. 
The weaver, too, had discovered it ; he carefully 
studies his pattern, finds where he has gone wrong, 
toilsomely remedies the defect, and as you step 
in again, the want of harmony has disappeared, 
and the perfect figure greets your gratified view. 



The Weaving of India Rugs 

May not this be taken as an illustration of God's 
pattern being interwoven into our lives ? 

The pattern is glorious ; is perfect. But in 
weaving it into our lives what sad mistakes we 
sometimes make ; how much we have to undo of 
what we have carelessly done. How often we 
find something that is out of harmony with God's 
plan, and yet the peculiar defect of which at first 
eludes our search. But as we study more closely 
the Divine image we see at last, by the illuminat- 
ing influence of the Holy Spirit, where the defect 
is, and heaving a sigh and seeking more light 
from over our shoulders, we at last weave in 
the pattern as God intended it. And at length, 
under the guiding eye of the Master Workman, 
our life pattern is "complete in Him." 

French imitations of these India rugs are now 
thrown on the market by the hundred. They are 
machine woven. The patterns are indeed exact. 
There is no distortion in any figure, but it is 
machine perfection. The rugs cannot compare 
in richness and life with the laboriously hand- 
made rugs of India, and no one who knows the 
true India rug will fail to note the difference, and 
though produced at one-fourth the cost, and sold 
for one-fourth the price, the demand is still for 
the more expensive handmade genuine India rugs. 

223 



The Cobra's Den 

There is no machinery for producing God's 
pattern in our lives, for producing "conformity 
to the image of His Son." It is a slow, laborious 
hand-work, to be done by each believer as he 
watchfully follows the Divine guidance in his 
life. But when this is accomplished how glori- 
ous the result, for "when He shall appear we 
shall be like Him." 

Let this, then, be your highest aim, your daily 
study, your hourly effort, as you enter upon your 
chosen life's work, and as you join hands with 
your Jesus in the completion of the work for 
which He gave His life — even the salvation of 
the whole race of man, imitate your Master. Do 
day by day as. He would have you do ; as He 
would do in your circumstances, and the result 
in your own life pattern, and in the conversion of 
those for whom you labour, will be glorious. 

Waste no time in vain regrets over past fail- 
ures, or newly discovered faults in the weaving 
of your life pattern ; but in humility asking God's 
free pardon for the errors of the past, say with 
the Apostle Paul, " This one thing I do. Forget- 
ting those things which are behind, and reaching 
forth unto those things that are before, I press 
toward the mark for the prize of the high calling 

of God in Christ Jesus." 

824 



The Weaving of India Rugs 

To-day there has sprung up a new relationship 
between us. For nearly twenty-four years have 
we been related as father and son. Now I 
gladly welcome you as a brother-minister of the 
Lord Jesus Christ. The natural tie ^^an never 
lessen; but let the new spiritual tie grow stronger 
and more all-controlling, as the Master allows us 
to be comrades in His glorious war, and brother- 
ministers of the New Covenant in that distant 
land, where, God willing, our lives are to be to- 
gether offered to Him who has bought us with 
His own precious blood. 

Yet bear with me while I reiterate to you the 
words which Paul the aged used as he exhorted 
his younger brother in the ministry, his son in 
the faith, Timothy, when he said: 

"Thou, therefore, my son, be strong in the 
grace that is in Christ Jesus." "Endure hard- 
ness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." "Watch 
thou in all things. Endure afflictions. Do the 
work of an Evangelist. Make full proof of thy 
ministry." 

For then will you be able to join in Paul's 
triumphant shout of victory: "I have fought 
a good fight. I have finished my course. I 
have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid 
up for me a crown of righteousness which the 

225 



The Cobra's Den 

Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that 

day." 

My son, my brother, I welcome you to the 
glorious fellowship of the missionary of the Cross 
of Christ Jesus, our Lord. 



226 



XXIII 

"DESPONDENT MISSIONARIES" 

An hour ago the overland mail came in. I 
took up one of our Home Religious Periodicals, 
one that is usually well informed on all missionary 
matters, and that is thoroughly sympathetic with 
missions and with missionaries. In an article on 
the very first page, it makes use of the expres- 
sion, "Our faithful, but now desponding mis- 
sionaries abroad." 

I laid down the paper, wiped my glasses, and 
looked again, to see if I could have read it right. 
Yes, there it was, "desponding missionaries." 
Where are they ? Perhaps there are such, but I 
do not know them. Yes, there must be, for 
there it stands in that well informed Periodical. 
Again I laid down the paper and began to think 
and question, Where are those "despondent 
missionaries".^ 

I have not seen them. But then I have not had 
much chance. It is only four and a half months 
since I came back to India, after a somewhat pro- 
longed absence in America, and things may have 

changed; I must make inquiries. 

227 



The Cobra's Den 

I saw a number of missionaries in Bombay, to 
be sure, when I landed, but my time was short, 
and they had only time to tell me of victories 
recently won; of new campaigns on which they 
were just entering for further conquests, and 
their faces were radiant, not despondent, as they 
spoke. But perhaps I misjudged them. 

On the second afternoon of our railway journey 
from Bombay to Madras, at a junction we were 
joined by a large party of missionaries just going 
to their annual meeting. They had closed the 
work of the year, tabulated their gains, written 
their reports. Seven of them were old personal 
friends, whom I had known as fellow-fighters for 
from fifteen to twenty-seven years. If they were 
despondent, they concealed it well. For two 
hours we had a compartment to ourselves, as 
they told me of victories scored, and obstacles 
overcome, since we last met, and of the grand 
openings for further fighting in the coming year. 

Just one week from that day I was in council 
with the missionaries of the Reformed Church of 
America, at our annual meeting at Vellore. Tales 
of more organised opposition, of increasing ob- 
stacles I did hear, but not of yielding to the op- 
position, nor of succumbing to the obstacles. 
The whole thought seemed to be, how shall we 

228 



" Despondent Missionaries " 

best organise our forces so as not only to hold 
our own but make larger conquests in the year 
to come. 

And when, a few weeks later, we and our 
native brethren gathered at Palmanerto inaugurate 
our new Theological College, for the Endowment 
of which I had been able to secure during my 
last six months in America, gifts aggregating 
nearly sixty thousand dollars, that we might be 
able the more thoroughly to train a more earnest, 
better equipped body of soldiers for the deepen- 
ing conflict, the jubilant shouts of joy, thanks- 
giving, hope and courage for this new leverage 
for more aggressive warfare, could not have been 
mistaken by even the most bilious dyspeptic, for 
moans of despondency. It was rather the "Mar- 
seillaise " of the coming liberation in the name of 
Christ. 

From there by previous invitation, I went to 
Madras to meet the "Madras Missionary Con- 
ference " composed of some seventy missionaries 
of all societies, English, Irish, Scotch, Germans, 
Danes, Americans, Hindus, to tell them of the 
proposed movement on the part of the Y. M. C. 
A.'s of America for organising a work for the 
millions of young Hindus who know not God. 
I was at their preliminary business meeting. 

229 



The Cobra's Den 

There was no whining over defeat, but vigorous 
plans for further assault. I was with them 
through the hour of social intercourse, and the 
sparkling eye and earnest utterance, as one after 
another told me of contests and campaigns and 
battles and victories while I had been away, had 
not the flavour of despondency. Nor did the 
wrapt attention, and frequently manifested ap- 
proval during my forty minutes' address on "Our 
God Given Opportunity now in India, and How 
to Turn it to Victory," by organising an army of 
young men to work with and for young men, 
with Young Men's Christian Association methods, 
nor the enthusiastic speeches that followed mine, 
indicate a despondent frame of mind. 

It was one of the most enthusiastic meetings I 
have attended in India, and enthusiasm is not 
born of despondency. The greatness of the ob- 
stacles now before us was clearly recognised ; the 
marshalling of the enemy's forces as never before; 
the new forms of more vigorous opposition; the 
crisis now upon us; each was distinctly seen, but 
** By God's help we will win the victory," seemed 
the prevalent thought in each mind. 

"Despondent missionaries!" Well, yes, we 
might possibly be despondent if we had time to 
sit and think and brood over the fewness of the 

230 



" Despondent Missionaries " 

recruits, and the smallness of the supplies, and 
the leanness of the Home Treasuries. But we 
have no time for that. If the recruits be few, we 
must each be up and do the more. If the sup- 
plies of funds be inadequate we must try the 
harder to make $io do the work of $20. We have 
no time to look down. We have to look up, and 
we see God the Father, God the Son and God the 
Holy Ghost, all pledged for, and working for the 
victory; and the victory will come. 

No! I have not found the "despondent mis- 
sionary." If there be one I would be glad to 
hear from him. I should like to know him, and to 
ask him why he desponds. And besides, a well- 
marked exception always strengthens the rule. 

But with deep solicitude we missionaries do look 
upon our loved churches at home, and a dread 
comes over us sometimes, when we think of the 
many in the hom^ churches who do nothing to 
help forward this mighty battle for victory, and 
we almost fear that the Divine fiat may go forth, 
with reference to some of them, " For if thou al- 
together boldest thy peace at this time, then shall 
there enlargement and deliverance arise from an- 
other place; but thou and thy father's house shall 
be destroyed; and who knoweth whether thou 
art come to the kingdom for such a time as this." 

231 



XXIV 

THE CHANGE OF FRONT IN INDIA 

A GENERATION has fully passed since the writer, 
in 1859, joined the ranks of those attempting the 
conquest of India for Christ. How different the 
condition and the outlook then and now! Then 
India was just emerging from the troublous and 
turbulent times of the great Sepoy Rebellion. 
The sway of the East India Company, which had 
been growing, for some two centuries, had re- 
cently been merged into the rule of Great Britain's 
queen, and religious toleration had been pro- 
claimed throughout her dominions. Then the 
first 200 miles of railway had just been opened; 
now some 20,000 miles run through all the prov- 
inces. Then western education was in its in- 
fancy; now 15,000,000 of the educated classes all 
through the land, but chiefly in the large cities, 
freely use the English language, and are more or 
less well up in western science and western 
thought, the vernaculars, however, still retaining 
undisputed sway in the households of all. 

Then Hinduism was as firmly seated on its 
throne as it had been at any time since the days 

232 




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Pi 

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The Change of Front in India 

of Moses. It had, indeed, passed through a slow 
process of modification, of deterioration. The 
essential monotheism of the Vedas of Moses' age 
had degenerated into the polytheism of the Shas- 
tras and Puranas, and farther, into the gross 
forms of idolatry of the later period, with its 
330,000,000 of deities, named and unnamed. The 
system of caste, invented long after the Vedic 
period, and gradually imposed upon the people, 
binding them hand and foot, and preventing all 
genuine progress, still manifested all its power, 
and one would sooner die than break caste rules, 
and lose his caste and so his soul. 

Then Hindus thoroughly believed and upheld 
and practiced their religion. Then Benares, Tir- 
upati, Sri Rangam, Rameshwararn, and the host 
of holy places were monthly thronged with their 
scores of thousands, and in their yearly festivals, 
by their hundred thousand pilgrims, and on all 
the roadways you would meet the returning pil- 
grims with two brass pots hanging from their 
kdvadt, or neck-yoke, filled with holy water at 
the Ganges, and replenished at each of the sacred 
streams as they wearily walked their thousands 
of miles to their distant homes. Then they be- 
lieved in the efficacy of these pilgrimages and 
penances and tortures. 

233 



The Cobra's Den 

In February, 1861, I met a venerable Brahman 
pilgrim who told me of his sixty years of pil- 
grimages — of twice ten thousand miles— to every 
sacred shrine in India, all made on foot, and beg- 
ging his food by the way. "And yet," said he 
sadly and with disappointment— ** and yet, the 
burden of sin is just as heavy as when a young 
man, I started on this quest. Oh, sir, does your 
Veda tell how I can get rid of this burden of sin, 
and be at peace with God ? " One sees no such 
pilgrims now. 

Then hook-swinging and spike- walking and 
self-torture and immolation were real verities. 
Yearly the shrine of Juggernaut saw its throngs 
of 100,000 devotees, from hundreds or thousands 
of miles of toilsome pilgrimage, and thousands 
gripped the long cables dragging the ponderous 
car of Juggernaut, while devotees were throw- 
ing themselves beneath its wheels. 

Now, all is changed. Britain's sway, indeed, 
has put a stop to torture and immolation, but the 
waning faith of the people in their religion has 
been putting a more effective quietus to the an- 
cient order of things, until recently Juggernaut's 
priests issued the dismal wail that not enough 
pilgrims came to pull the car around its annual 
outing, and scarce were they able, with all the 

234 



The Change of Front in India 

coolies they could hire, to move it back to its 
home. 

The throngs of devout worshippers, making 
toilsome journeys, with costly gifts, have ceased. 
Lessening multitudes now go, indeed, but by 
train, with more or less comfort, to many of the 
shrines, and perfunctorily engage in some of the 
less irksome ceremonies, but little or none of the 
religious spirit is seen. 

Then the rich endowments of the temples 
were yearly increased by the liberal gifts of 
those who believed they could thus buy release 
from sin. Now myriads of temples are slowly 
going to ruin, and a wail comes up from the 
priests of the most noted shrines at the smallness 
of the offerings, while the people are openly ac- 
cusing the priests of squandering in voluptuous 
licentiousness the revenues from the endowments 
of the pious dead. 

But let us note Hindu testimony on this 
point. 

One hundred of the chief residents of Tirupati, 
the most noted shrine of southern India, signed 
and sent a memorial to the Viceroy of India, in 
May, 1894, calling his attention to the desperate 
condition of Hindu religious endowments in 
general and of those of Tirupati in particular: 

235 



The Cobra's Den 

and praying that government would provide 
more efficient means of safeguarding the interests 
of such endowments. 

The Daily Hindu, one of the strongest native 
papers in India, the organ of all the orthodox 
Hindus of Madras, published the memorial and 
thus commented upon it: 

"We may well feel shocked at the true yet 
wondrous tales of huge frauds and heinous 
crimes which the memorialists have catalogued. 
The glory has departed out of our religious insti- 
tutions, and what once contributed to purify the 
minds of millions of men and women are now 
the grovelling ground of some of the most ig- 
norant and wretched of human beings, — who 
merely wallow in a mire of voluptuous pastimes, 
wasting the pious contributions of the widow 
and orphan, and breeding around them a whole 
host of idle, able-bodied vagabonds. The vast 
majority of these endowments are corrupt to the 
core. They are a festering mass of crime and 
vice and gigantic swindling." 

What a change of front since the leaders of 
Hindu thought were the ardent supporters and 
rich benefactors of these very temples! 

The Reis and Rayyet, an influential Calcutta 
orthodox Hindu paper, sneers at Mrs. Besant's 

236 



The Change of Front in India 

ecstasies over the beauties of Hinduism, and 
justly says : 

"When an English lady of decent culture, pro- 
fesses to be an admirer of Tantric mysticism and 
Krishna worship, it behoves every well-wisher 
of the country to tell her plainly that sensible 
men do not want her eloquence for gilding what 
is rotten. ... 

"If the Upanishads, (Commentaries on the 
Vedas, etc.,) have a charm for Mrs. Besant, she. 
is quite welcome to proclaim her views on the 
subject. But the Upanishads do not form any 
part of the religion of the Hindus as it is found 
in their everyday life. In actual practice they 
are either Sivites or Saktas or Krishna worship- 
pers. In fact, abomination worship is the main 
ingredient of modern Hinduism, and we there- 
fore ask Mrs. Besant to study the subject a little 
more carefully than she yet appears to have done. 
If she will follow our advice, she may, provided 
she is sincere herself, sooner or later, admit that 
the course she is now pursuing is fraught with 
mischief." 

Of the Brahmanic priesthood in India at the 
present day, The Hindu, the representative native 
newspaper, before referred to, speaks in these 
scorching words : 

237 



The Cobra's Den 

"Profoundly ignorant as a class, and infinitely 
selfish, it is the mainstay of every unholy, im- 
moral and cruel custom and superstition in our 
midst, from the wretched dancing girl, who in- 
sults the deity by her existence, to the pining 
child-widow, whose every tear, and every hair 
of whose head shall stand up against every one 
of us who tolerate it, on the Day of judgment. 
Of such a priestly class our women are the igno- 
rant tools and dupes." 

It seems now to be the profound conviction of 
all thoughtful Hindus that Hinduism as it now 
exists, as it was when Christian missions began 
their campaign in India, as it has been for the 
last two thousand years, must go. 

The stanch, orthodox Brahman editor of a 
vernacular newspaper is quoted by The Mission- 
ary, London, as taking this gloomy view of the 
situation : 

"We entertain no more any hope for that re- 
ligion which we consider dearer than our life. 
Hinduism is now on its deathbed and unfortu- 
nately there is no drug which can safely be ad- 
ministered to it for its recovery. There are na- 
tive Christians nowadays who have declared a 
terrible crusade against the entire fabric of Hindu- 
ism, and many men of splendid education are 

^38 



The Change of Front in India 

also coming forth, even from our own commu- 
nity, [Brahmans] who have already expressed a 
desire to accept Christianity, and should these 
gentlemen really become first Christians and then 
its preachers, they will give the last deathblow 
to Mother Hinduism. This terrible crusade is 
now carried on by Christians with a tenacity of 
purpose and devotion which in themselves defy 
failure." 

But while all thoughtful Hindus seem to agree 
that Hinduism, in its modern form at least, must 
go, they are not by any means agreed as to what 
shall take its place. All agree in fighting ag- 
gressive Christianity. They have even borrowed 
Christian tactics and have formed, in many cities 
of India, " Hindu Tract and Preaching Societies," 
and are issuing millions of pages of tracts, at- 
tacking Christianity, and scattering them broad- 
cast. Some of them are of a most blasphemous 
character, and filled with grossest falsehood. 
Others are simply designed to arouse Hindus to 
a sense of their danger. One of these, as trans- 
lated from Tamil by Dr. J. W. Scudder, makes 
use of the following language, a singular admis- 
sion for enemies to make: 

"How many thousands of thousands have 
these missionaries turned to Christianity! On 

239 



The Cobra's Den 

how many more have they cast their nets! If 
we sleep, as heretofore, in a short time they will 
turn all to Christianity without exception, and 
our temples will be changed into churches. Is 
there no learned Pandit to be secured for money 
who will crush the Christians ? 

** Do you not know that the number of Chris- 
tians is increasing, and the number of Hindu re- 
ligionists decreasing every day ? How long will 
water remain in a reservoir which continually 
lets out but receives none in ? Let all the people 
join as one man to banish Christianity from our 
land." 

There are three distinct trends of thought on 
the part of those who unitedly oppose aggressive 
Christianity. 

One party seeks to resuscitate Vedic Hinduism; 
to purge modern Hinduism of all its undesirable 
later accretions, and restore it to its pristine 
purity. But no two agree as to what its ** Un- 
desirable accretions" are, nor as to what the 
"Pristine purity" should consist in. Some say 
it must be monotheistic, and without caste dis- 
tinctions. Others wish to retain a few of the 
more popular gods, and to keep up caste dis- 
tinctions. There seems at present no prospect 
of an agreement as to what this '/ Revival of 

240 



The Change of Front in India 

Hinduism " should consist in, though there are 
multitudes of preachers of such a revival. What 
will be the outcome of this no one can say. 

The second trend is toward the acceptance of 
a Christianity without Christ, — that is, the ac- 
cepting of Christ's teachings as a system of 
morality, without accepting the name of Chris- 
tians, and without admitting Christ to be Divine. 

The Indian Social Reformer, edited by non- 
Christian Hindus, in a notice of the American 
Arcot Mission's report for 1894, makes this 
evident, as in the following extract: 

** Why does not Christianity progress ? The 
situation at present admits the report, is * unpleas- 
ant and disheartening, ' to the missionary. Why ? 
The reason to our minds is this; the ordinary mis- 
sionary attaches more value to the name than to 
the spirit of Christ, and judges of his labours by the 
number of his [avowed] converts. The true 
Christian spirit, which is also the true spirit of all 
faith, is making way. Is it so very difficult for 
our missionary friends to see that the mind which 
revolts from the dogmas and extravagances of 
Hinduism will not accept those of Christianity ? 
That the man who rejects the theory of the in- 
carnation of Rama would not believe in that of 

Christ ? No, no. Emancipation is once for all. 

841 



The Cobra's Den 

A godlike man is still a man and not God. There 
is our difference with our Christian brother in a 
nutshell. 

"We concede that Christ is one of the most per- 
fect, the noblest of men. We read the Bible and 
listen awe-struck to the Sermon on the Mount, 
and pass on to the soul-stirring sacrifice on Cal- 
vary. Does it move us one whit less — this im- 
mortal heroism — that we believe that the hero 
was a man ? And why do you want more ? " 

A few would go still further in their admis- 
sion, and, in their willingness to borrow from 
Christianity, even professing to believe in the in- 
carnation of Christ, but, with the same breath, 
declaring that they believe Buddha and Zoroaster 
to be incarnations of the deity. 

The Amrita Bazaar Patrika, a stubbornly 
orthodox Hindu newspaper of North India, in an 
editorial has these words : 

"There is scarcely an educated man in India 
who has not read the Bible. It is impossible for 
a Hindu not to feel a profound respect for the 
Bible. The real fact is that every true Hindu is a 
believer in Christ also. There is not a true 
Hindu all over India who does no believe in the 
Avatar, [Incarnation] of Christ. Indeed, in the 
matter of devotion to Christ, the Hindus and 

242 



The Change of Front in India 

Christians are on a perfectly equal level. There 
cannot be the least objection on the part of a 
Hindu to pray, 'Save me, Father, for the sake 
of Jesus Christ.'" 

They would simply add Christ, with His inimi- 
table life and teachings to their pantheon, but re- 
main Hindus or non-Christians all the same. To 
this end, ''The Arjya Literary Society in Cal- 
cutta, composed of non-Christian Bengali gentle- 
men " we are told, "are now engaged in 
translating the Bible into classical Bengali. They 
have asked and obtained the assistance of rep- 
resentative men of the Christian communities, 
lest anything should appear in the translation 
which should make it anti-Christian in tone." 
- The third distinct trend is toward agnosticism ; 
and this I regard as the most portentous trend of 
all, for it exists not only among those who 
openly so avow themselves, but untold numbers 
who, for social reasons, ally themselves with 
some one of the other parties, have really thrown 
themselves into blank and cheerless agnosticism, 
and the number is increasing faster than we 
know. 

There is, however, in spite of all the above 
mentioned opposition, an unquestionable under- 
current tending toward evangelical Christianity. 

343 



The Cobra's Den 

There came to me secretly in my tent, when out 
upon a tour, a native gentleman high in office, in 
caste, in social position, of whom I have spoken 
at length in preceding chapters, wishing to have 
a private conversation with me on the claims of 
Jesus of Nazareth to be the Saviour of the world. 
After a somewhat extended conversation he said 
to me, in substance: 

" Sir, I am not a Christian. I am still regarded 
as a devout Hindu. I still perform enough 
Hindu ceremonies to avoid suspicion, but in my 
heart I dare not deny the claims of the Bible. I 
see the power of Jesus Christ in the lives of His 
followers so distinctly that I cannot deny His 
Divinity. He must be Divine or He could not 
work such a change in the lives of those who 
become His disciples. He is not yet my Saviour. 
Caste, wealth, position, family all hold me back; 
but even now I never allow Him to be spoken 
against in my presence. I have long been read- 
ing the Bible in secret. The more I read of 
Christ and ponder over His life and teachings, and 
the power to conquer sin, which comes from 
embracing His religion, the more do I feel that in 
the end I shall have to accept Him at any cost, as 
my personal Saviour; but how can I do it now 
and bring ruin upon my family ?" 

244 



The Change of Front in India 

There are more such than we have any idea 
of. The surface currents so often fail to tell 
what the deep-sea movements are. 

Sir Charles Elliott, Lieutenant-Governor of 
Bengal, for thirty years a close observer of mis- 
sionary activities and missionary problems in 
many provinces in India, said in a public ad- 
dress : 

''There is unquestionably an undercurrent 
working among the higher classes in India to- 
ward Christianity, in spite of all the open mani- 
festations against it, and we may look forward 
with confident expectation to the day when all 
India shall bow at the feet of Christ, who alone 
can uplift, purify and save." 

This changed front, then gives royal vantage 
ground to work for India's redemption. The 
old apathy; the supercilious indifference; the old 
silent, but dogged resistance; the old conviction 
that naught could shake Hinduism's firm founda- 
tions, has passed away, and passed never to re- 
turn. Religious thought in India is drifting 
hither and yon. The time to rally all Christ's 
forces has come. Let earnestness of effort and 
persistence in prayer bring out and energise 
these secret half-disciples. The currents that are 
veering away from Christianity may now, by 

245 



The Cobra's Den 

God's blessing on trebled effort, be turned to- 
ward the Cross of Calvary, and India yet be 
won in this generation. The time for work is 
now. 



S46 



XXV 

VERNACULAR PREACHING I IS IT INEFFECTIVE ? 

An extract from Dr. Norman Macleod's ** Ad- 
dress on Missions in India," as given in the ap- 
pendix to his memoirs, has been forwarded to 
me by a distinguished divine, noted for his 
earnest interest in foreign missions, asking that 
I v^ould give my opinion **as to his claim that 
the mere proclamation of the gospel to the adult 
Hindus is ineffectual," — that is, stated boldly, 
that vernacular preaching alone, without previous 
education in Western science and culture, is in- 
effectual for their conversion. 

There is much that is just in Dr. Macleod's 
characterisation, in that address, of the theolog- 
ical terms in common use in the vernaculars of 
India, as containing misconceptions. But we 
must remember that Dr. Macleod's visit to 
India, made a quarter of a century ago, was 
chiefly to his own missions; to those holding the 
Scotch educational ideas, and who gave them- 
selves almost entirely to educational work in 
English, and who did not know the vernaculars 
well, if at all, their work being in English. He 

247 



The Cobra's Den 

imbibed the idea that you must first educate the 
Hindus and then convert them. His address con- 
tains a strong and keen presentation of their side 
of the question. 

On the other hand, the published "Fundamen- 
tal Principles " of the Arcot Mission of which I 
am a member declare the other view, to which 
we more and more firmly adhere, viz : 

" We believe that India with its teeming popu- 
lation is accessible to the preaching of the gospel 
from her lowliest village to her most crowded 
city. We believe that God has endowed the 
Hindus with an intellect peculiarly capable of 
comprehending the truths which He has revealed, 
and with a conscience fitted to be awakened 
thereby. 

"We believe that the vernacular languages of 
India furnish media fully adapted for the clear 
and forcible communication of divine truth. 

"We believe that Christ's commission, recorded 
by the Evangelists, enjoins as the definite plan of 
missionary labour the promulgation among the 
population of the gospel in their own tongues ; 
the perseverance in the use of the means until in- 
dividuals and communities are proselyted to the 
Christian faith, and the teaching of proselytes 
and their children ; " and, therefore, 

248 



Vernacular Preaching 

"That each missionary, as far as possible, 
should make the preaching of the gospel to the 
heathen in the vernaculars his chief work." 

On these principles the Arcot Mission has car- 
ried on its main work from its establishment. 
Of the 7,513 converts it is safe to say that more 
than ninety per cent, have been brought in by this 
**pubhc proclamation" of the gospel. Admit- 
tedly a large proportion of these is from the 
lower classes. But of our converts from the 
higher castes it is also true that a large percent- 
age has been brought in by this *' public procla- 
mation " of the gospel in the vernaculars. John 
Silas, the Arni Brahman, converted and baptised 
in our mission in 1862, and who died an efficient 
native minister in an adjoining mission, never at- 
tended a mission school or an English school a 
day before his conversion. He heard the proc- 
lamation of the gospel by our missionary at 
Arni, in the streets, repeatedly. He obtained 
Tamil Gospels and read them, and was converted 
and nearly lost his life because he came out boldly 
and embraced Christianity. Abraham William, 
the converted Reddi, the beloved and successful 
native pastor in our mission, owed his conver- 
sion to street preaching in Chittoor. Isaac 
Henry, the lamented Bible teacher in the schools 

249 



The Cobra's Den 

of Vellore, was brought to Christ by the vernac- 
ular preaching in the mission hospital at Arcot, 
where he was a patient. John Jacob Rayappa, 
the Brahman convert at Madanapalle in 189 1, was 
brought in solely by village preaching and tracts. 
Old Seth Reddi, the father of the beloved John 
Hill and Samuel Seth, the head man of his vil- 
lage, and whom I buried in Palmaner in 1861, 
was brought in by the reading of tracts and gos- 
pels in Telugu, and so with a majority of our 
Brahmans and other high caste Hindu converts 
too numerous to name. . 

The different meanings they have been accus- 
tomed to associate with the vernacular theological 
terms we have to use, such as sin, salvation, re- 
generation, heaven, etc., does indeed constitute 
a difficulty. Paul had exactly the same difficulty 
to contend with when he went forth among the 
idolatrous Gentiles, when he discussed with the 
polished Greeks of Athens and Corinth. But, in 
spite of that difficulty, he was successful in intro- 
ducing Christianity in those lands by the use of 
their vernacular, steeped in idolatry and false 
ideas though it was. So will we be, if we judi- 
ciously use and explain the vernacular terms they 
have, and earnestly, lovingly, and with faith push 
the work. Some of the incidents given in my 

250 



Vernacular Preaching 

sermon on " The Bible Tested, or How the Bible 
Works in India," published by the American 
Bible Society, show distinctly that Hindus do 
comprehend and are sometimes moved by our 
public proclamation, and that they have a con- 
science for sin which is capable of being aroused 
by this oral proclamation. 

Dr. Macleod says: "In no case, moreover, 
will the educated and influential classes listen to 
such preaching." 

I join issue with Dr. Macleod. He has never 
tested it. 1 have. 1 have stood for two hours in 
the public streets of a city with the streets packed 
with the Brahmans, merchants and city elders, 
keenly discussing the claims and the doctrines of 
Christianity, and their astute and wily objections 
thrown in showed that they were comprehend- 
ing and fearing the power of the truth. I have 
had such audiences in the Mysore kingdom and 
the Hyderabad dominions, as well as in British 
India. After a long discussion in the market 
place of a Mysore city with the chief priest of 
the place surrounded by seventy of his pupils, 
and the educated people of the city, and which 
had been carried on into the darkness of the 
night, closing with the promise of the priest to 
meet us there in discussion again the next even- 

S51 



The Cobra's Den 

ing, that very priest came secretly to our tent, in 
a grove near tlie city walls, the next day, at mid- 
day when all the people were in their houses at 
their meals, so that no one should see him come, 
and, after an interesting conversation, making 
sure that no one else heard him, he made to us 
this frank confession : 

"Sirs, what you said yesterday in the market 
place was utterly unanswerable. I did the best I 
could to defend my own position, surrounded as 
I was by my own disciples, but I am not going 
to meet you in discussion again. What you said 
is so pure, so holy, so good, it so appeals to the 
highest desires and needs of men that it seems as 
though it must be true; it must be divine. At 
all events it is a nobler religion than ours. But, 
sirs, we Brahmans cannot afford to let you suc- 
ceed. We are now treated as demigods by the 
people; we reap the rich revenues from all these 
temples; at every festival we receive rich gifts; 
we are looked up to and worshipped. But let 
your system succeed, which teaches that there 
need be no human mediator, no mediator be- 
tween God and man but Jesus Christ, and we 
Brahmans drop from our high pedestal down to 
the level of common men, and must struggle 
with the ignoble throng for an existence. No, 

253 



Vernacular Preaching 

sirs, your system is better than ours. It is so 
pure, so holy, so good, it appeals so to the high- 
est desires of the human soul that it seems as 
though it must be divine. But, sirs, we Brah- 
mans cannot afford to let you succeed in intro- 
ducing your religion. We have got to fight 
you." 

That statement, so unusually frank, may fur- 
nish a key to the often repeated assertion, "We 
don't know what all this means. It is so foreign, 
so Occidental that we do not at all comprehend 
it." It is not that they cannot understand God's 
plan of salvation even when presented in the 
vernacular and with defective theological terms 
which we must explain and illustrate as we use 
them, for this Brahman priest knew no English, 
and had never before met a missionary, and yet 
he took its essentials all in. It is that the natural 
heart there, as everywhere, abetted in the case of 
the Brahmans by powerful self-interest, stands 
out stoutly against the truth, and none the less 
with those who have received an education in 
Western lore. The very few conversions from 
among those educated in mission colleges, in the 
quarter century since Dr. Macleod made that ad- 
dress, do not warrant us in delaying the procla- 
mation of the gospel until India's two hundred 

^53 



The Cobra's Den 

and eighty millions have been educated in West- 
ern culture. 

Higher education has its place in the uplifting 
of India, and a noble place it is. It is a grand 
auxiliary power, and in our mission we use it as 
such. But to say that without it as a forerunner 
the peoples of India cannot comprehend the way 
of salvation through Jesus Christ, cannot under- 
standingly accept of Him as their Saviour, is a 
reflection on Him who gave the command, " Go, 
preach the gospel," and who said, "he that be- 
lieveth and is baptised shall be saved." 

We of the Arcot Mission press forward in this 
vernacular proclamation of the gospel, foolish 
though it seem to some, in the absolute confi- 
dence that the incoming fruits will fully sustain 
Paul's declaration that "it pleased God by the 
foolishness of preaching to save them that be- 
lieve." 



254 



XXVI 

A UNIQUE MISSIONARY MEETING ON THE HIMALAYAS 

Sir Charles Elliott, the Governor of Bengal, 
and Lady Elliott last week sent out cards of invi- 
tation for a reception to all the missionaries of all 
societies now working on these hills, numbering 
more than eighty, including those working at 
Darjeeling, Ghum, and Kalimpong, and those 
visiting this sanitarium for recuperation. 

The principal residents of Darjeeling, and tea 
planters on the slopes of the mountains, and 
many officials up here, on duty with the gov- 
ernor, or on leave, were also invited by Lady 
Elliott to meet the missionaries. 

Sir Charles has had long experience in India, 
rising from the bottom of the Civil Service lad- 
der, up through the different grades, by sheer 
force of character, until he has attained by ap- 
pointment of the Queen Empress, to his present 
exalted position. In government official parlance 
he is styled the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, 
because the Governor-General, or Viceroy, also 
has his headquarters in Bengal, and of course, 

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overshadows him. But Sir Charles is, de facto, 
Bengal's governor, having his own Legislative 
Council, and his own Cabinet, or Secretaries, en- 
tirely distinct from those of the Viceroy. 

Darjeeling is the Summer Capital of Bengal, 
and during the hottest months Sir Charles and 
Lady Elliott occupy "The Shrubbery," as the 
gubernatorial residence here is called, with its 
beautiful garden-park around it, and government 
offices and chief officials adjacent; and from here 
the affairs of the great Bengal Presidency are, for 
the time, administered. 

The cards of invitation read "To a Garden 
Party at 4:00 o'clock, to be followed by a Draw- 
ing Room, at which an account will be given of 
the Progress of Missionary Work." 

A break had come in the Monsoon weather now 
upon us, and the clear day with the view of 
eighty miles of snowy mountains added to the 
zest with which all parties came together. The 
Governor and Lady Elliott were exceedingly af- 
fable, having pleasant words of cheer for each 
missionary, as they enquired after their work, 
and taking special pains to introduce the mis- 
sionaries and officials, residents, and tea planters, 
who were present. After an hour's very pleasant 

social intercourse, during which refreshments 

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Missionary Meeting on the Himalayas 

were served to all, Sir Charles passed through 
the company, inviting all to come to the " Durbar 
Room" or Reception Hall used on State Oc- 
casions, and the company was quickly seated on 
sofas, divans and chairs placed in an uncon- 
ventional manner all around the spacious room. 

Pleasant conversation ran on for a few minutes, 
when order was called, and the Governor, step- 
ping to a table at the head of the room, gave a 
brief address of welcome, which was so pleasant 
and so telling that I have written it out briefly, 
that others too may enjoy it and be helped and 
stimulated by it. 

Sir Charles spoke substantially as follows: 

" Missionary friends. Ladies and Gentlemen : I 
wish in a few words to say what a very great 
pleasure it gives Lady Elliott and myself to wel- 
come so many missionaries here as our chief 
guests this evening, coming as they do from all 
parts of our Presidency as well as from the other 
Presidencies and Provinces of India, and repre- 
senting so many different missionary societies, 
fpom so many different countries. 

"We are very glad that so many missionaries 
can come up to this delightful climate, from the 
burning plains, for a little well-earned rest and 
recuperation, after their soul absorbing and 

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arduous toil at their stations, for it will fit them 
the better for the heavy work ever before them. 

'' It gives us real pleasure to tender to them this 
small amount of hospitality, with a large amount 
of sympathy and good will, and of appreciation 
of the noble, and to India, all important service 
that they are rendering. 

"My long experience in India, in the different 
Presidencies and Provinces has taught me that 
the British Government in India cannot possibly 
do the work which, in the Providence of God, is 
our only justification for being here, namely the 
civilisation, enlightenment, and uplifting of the 
whole people of India, without the aid of the mis- 
sionaries. For extended observation, and care- 
ful study of the people, have produced in me the 
profound conviction that nothing can lift these 
millions of Hindus up to the standard of our 
Western Christian nations in probity, morality 
and nobleness of life, but that gospel of Christ 
which has lifted us up. 

*'I view, then, the missionary work as an in- 
dispensable, unofficial, voluntary auxiliary of the 
government in carrying out in India its highest 
aspirations, the ennobling of the whole Hindu 
people. Always in our tours in the provinces 
Lady Elliott and myself find our greatest pleasure 

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Missionary Meeting on the Himalayas 

in looking up and trying to help and encourage 
the missionary work of all societies wherever we 
go. We are grateful to you missionaries for 
your self-sacrificing labours and for the help you 
thus render the government, and I assure you, 
that you will always find sympathy both in 'The 
Shrubbery ' where we now are, and in ' Belvi- 
dere ' House in Calcutta, so long as we continue 
to occupy it. 

' ' I wish further to say, that Lady Elliott and my- 
self have to-day invited you, the leading residents 
and visitors at Darjeeling, and tea planters of the 
district, that you may meet these missionaries, 
and learn of their work and learn to know them 
personally, and so henceforth take a much greater 
interest in their work, and render them the more 
liberal help. If they give their lives to the work, 
it is only fair that we should aid in furnishing 
them abundant supplies. 

"I congratulate you all that the last census, and 
the signs of the times all point to a very positive 
and somewhat rapid progress of the missionary 
work in India. There is unquestionably an under- 
current working among the higher classes in 
India toward Christianity, in spite of all the open 
manifestations against it, and we may look for- 
ward with confident expectation to the day when 

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all India shall bow at the feet of Christ, who 
alone can uplift, purify and save." 

At the nomination of the governor, Bishop 
Johnson, the Anglican Bishop of Calcutta, and 
Metropolitan of India, then took the chair, and, 
in a brief address, thanking Sir Charles for his 
outspoken testimony to the missionary work, and 
him and Lady Elliott for the kind conception and 
kind action which had assembled this company, 
went on to say that his duties as Metropolitan of 
India, taking him from the Himalayas to Cape 
Comorin, and from Karachi, on the sea of Arabia, 
to Assam, on the borders of China, gave him the 
opportunity of guaging any progress made in 
the missionary work, not alone of the Church of 
England, but, to some extent, of all other so- 
cieties within those wide limits; that when he 
first came to India, a decade ago, he did not, at 
once, appreciate the amount of preparatory work 
that had been done, not to be tabulated in any 
statistics, not apparent to the eye of the casual 
observer, but which he now saw to be the chief 
element of hope for the speedy evangelisation of 
India. He told of the numbers of educated 
native gentlemen who, to his knowledge, were 
now privately reading the Bible, and endeavouring 
to conform their lives to its precepts, while still 

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Missionary Meeting on the Himalayas 

outwardly adhering to Hinduism, who ere long, 
when the Spirit of God should mightily move 
among them, would come over, as a mighty host, 
into the Christian Church. He spoke of the 
wonderful uplifting power which Christianity 
had already manifested in the Madras Presidency, 
in those regions where very large numbers of 
converts had been gathered, and referred to the 
remarkable declaration of the Director of Public 
Instruction in Madras in his last official report on 
the progress of education, to the effect that if the 
percentage of increase during the last twenty 
years be maintained, the native Christian popula- 
tion of that presidency would within the next 
two generations have surpassed the Brahman 
in education, in intelligence, in material pros- 
perity and in official position. He intimated that 
he had come to India interested, indeed, in mis- 
sions, but practically a pessimist as to their prog- 
ress; that a decade of close observation had 
converted him into an optimist, for the well- 
marked indications now were that India would, 
in the not very distant future, become an integral 
part of the Kingdom of Christ. 

Rev. Archibald Turnbull, B. D., the senior mis- 
sionary, in the Darjeeling District, of the Church 
of Scotland, to which seems to be committed the 

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The Cobra's Den 

evangelisation of the Eastern Himalayas, gave a 
terse and interesting account of the work going 
on among these Hill-people, with their twelve 
catechists and twenty junior assistants, at Dar- 
jeeling, and at twelve out-stations, reaching to 
the base of the mountains; Nipali Catechists for 
the Nipalis who have immigrated in such num- 
bers from the adjacent Kingdom of Nipal, in con- 
nection with the tea industry; Lepcha Cathechists 
for the Lepchas from Sikkim, and a Bhutia Cate- 
chist working among the Bhutias, who have 
flocked in from Bhutan; and told of the little 
churches they had already established here with 
1,700 adherents, and 600 communicants, with 
baptisms of new converts every month. He also 
spoke of the Scotch Ladies' Zenana Mission in 
Darjeeling, consisting of three Scotch ladies, and 
one native woman, who carry on their work in 
and around Darjeeling in four languages,— Nipali, 
Hindi, Bengah and Hindustani. 

Miss Edith Highton, of the English Church 
Zenana Mission in Calcutta, followed with an in- 
tensely interesting account of their methods of 
work, their hindrances and their successes. 

Rev. Mr. Gwynn, of the Church Missionary 
Society, in charge of their Training Institution in 
Calcutta, then told of his work, and instanced 

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Missionary Meeting on the Himalayas 

remarkable cases of conversion of young men of 
the higher classes from their study of the Bible in 
mission schools, who had, indeed, lost all, of 
property and friends, but had gained Christ; thus 
effectually answering the oft repeated taunt that 
Hindus only become Christians for worldly gain. 

Rev. J. A. Graham, M. A., of the "Young 
Men's Guild Mission " of the Church of Scotland 
at Kalimpong, in British Bhutan, spoke of the ex- 
ceedingly hopeful work in his mission, with 200 
baptisms of mountaineers last year, and of the 
native Church organising a "Foreign Missionary 
Society " among themselves, to send the gospel 
into the Kingdom of Bhutan adjacent, into which 
no European can yet enter; and of the resignation 
from mission service of the senior and highest 
paid native evangelist, who had begun the work 
at Kalimpong, some twelve years ago, that he 
might go forth as the first foreign missionary of 
the native church to the turbulent and dangerous 
regions of Bhutan, receiving only the voluntary 
contributions of the native Christians to support 
him in Bhutan, and his family in Kalimp6ng, 
since they could not accompany him. 

He also spoke for the "Scottish Universities' 
Mission," in Independent Sikkim, now under the 
efficient charge of Rev. Robert Kilgour, B. D., 

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The Cobra's Den 

of Glasgow University, who, with his fifteen 
native assistants, is pushing the work up into 
Eastern, Central and Western Sikkim, building 
their little churches almost on the borders of the 
perpetual snows; for in Sikkim rise those giant 
mountains 23,000, 25,000 and 27,000 feet high, 
towered over by their monarch Kinchin Janga, 
The Golden Horn, 28,177 f^^t high, the second 
highest mountain in the world. 

With a hearty vote of thanks to the chairman, 
the speakers, and to Sir Charles and Lady Elliott, 
and a cheering cup of coffee as we passed out 
through the refreshment room again, we sepa- 
rated, with the intensified conviction and deter- 
mination that ''from the eternal snows of the 
Himalayas to the scorching sands of Cape Co- 
morin Jesus shall be King." 



264 



XXVII 

THE ORIENTAL "BRIDE OF THE LAMB"* 

I AM asked as to the "Cost of Foreign Mis- 
sions." Is it not a very expensive agency ? Does 
it produce adequate results ? This is a fair ques- 
tion if asked in a proper spirit, with a desire to 
remedy defects and help forward the work. 

I have prepared and brought here statistics with 
reference to your foreign missionary work which 
prove that it is one of the most economical 
agencies ever utilised by the Reformed Church 
for the establishment of churches and the bring- 
ing in of souls into the Kingdom, and the educa- 
tion and elevation of a people: but the lateness 
of the hour forbids my presenting these statistics 
now. 

Yet, for the moment, grant that the missionary 
work does cost, and that it costs heavily. What 
then ? 

Mr. President, Brothers, Sisters: This is prob- 

1 The concluding part of an address before the General 
Synod of the Reformed Church, on Foreign Missionary Even- 
ing, at Catskill, N. Y,, June 8th, 1896- 

265 



The Cobra's Den 

ably the last time that I shall ever be permitted to 
address the General Synod of the Reformed 
Church. Thirty-seven years ago this month I at- 
tended the meeting of the General Synod in Al- 
bany, then ordained and under appointment to 
sail to join the Arcot Mission. Twice before 
during this thirty-seven years I have returned, 
broken dov^n, to my native land for recuperation, 
and have had the opportunity to plead with you 
for India, ere rejoining my field. Now, a third 
time God has heard prayer and granted such res- 
toration that I look forward with joy to a speedy 
return to my chosen life work. 

Fifteen years' work, in completing the transla- 
tion and revision of the Telugu Bible, and in the 
bringing out of an illustrated Bible Dictionary 
written from an Oriental standpoint for Oriental 
people, for which I have been for twenty years 
preparing, and other literary and missionary 
labour has been laid on my shoulders, and how 
am I straitened until it be accomplished. My 
heart is pulling at the leash to get back this fall 
and throw my every energy into the work. 

At my age, and in India's treacherous climate, 
there is little human probability that I shall again 
see the land of my birth. Nor would I have it 
otherwise. It is my earnest prayer that I may be 

266 



The Oriental " Bride of the Lamb " 

summoned up with the harness on; that my 
body may be laid in the cemetery there among 
my people; and that, when the trump shall 
sound, I may go up surrounded by my spiritual 
children whom God has allowed me to bring out 
of heathenism's darkness into His light. 

I desire then, in this probably my last address 
to you, to say a few very earnest words. 

Grant that the missionary work does cost. 
What then ? Nature teaches us that the higher 
the order of being, the longer the period, and, 
the more expensive the process of development. 
The inhabitants of a cube of moist cheese are 
born, developed and complete their life work in 
a few hours. The lamb gives a fleece at the end 
of the first year that pays all the expense of its 
rearing. The blooded colt requires three or four 
or more years of care and costly nurture before 
it brings any return to its owner. 

The daughter of parents of culture; how care- 
fully is she nurtured that her physical, intellectual 
and spiritual powers may attain the most perfect 
development. No expense is spared for doctors, 
teachers, advisers, as she goes on through pri- 
mary, grammar and high school, and on to Wel- 
lesley, or Barnard. For two and a half decades 
the parents' care, the parents' wealth is lavished 

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The Cobra's Den 

upon her that she may become an ornament to 
society, an uplifting agency in the world. 

Brothers and sisters of the Reformed Church, 
you are nurturing a "Bride for the Lamb" in 
India, in China, in Japan, in Arabia. On you 
devolves the joyful task that she should be fitly 
cultured to be "The Lamb's Wife" to eternity. 
Who, who would complain of the expense 
needed for the proper culturing of these Oriental 
Brides of Christ? The Reformed Church aims 
to present to her Lord, as His bride, "The king's 
daughter all glorious within," adorned with 
pearls not bought in the market, pearls of char- 
acter, pearls of devotion, pearls of absolute con- 
secration to her Lord. "So shall the King greatly 
desire her beauty." Who would complain if she 
does not reach her maturity in one decade or 
two; if she requires many long years, as we 
measure years, for her growth, her culture, her 
adornment! 

O, Church of the Redeemed! be^^rudge no 
care, no labour: Be not a stingy mother, nor 
impatient, for she whom thou dost nourish in 
those far lands of the Orient is for all ages to be 
"The Wife of the Lamb." 

Four and a half decades ago 1 heard and heeded 
a summons to become a tutor to that bride in 

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The Oriental " Bride of the Lamb " 

India, a summons that after all these intervening 
years, and with my maturer powers, still rings, 
and with tenfold force, in my listening ears: 

" My soul is not at rest ; there comes a strange 
And secret whisper to my spirit like a dream of night, 
That tells me I am on enchanted ground : 
The voice of my departed Lord, « Go teach all nations,* 
Comes on the night air, and awakes mine ear. 

Why stay I here ? The vows of God are on me, 
And I may not stop to play with shadows. 

Or pluck earthly flowers, till I my work have done, i 

And rendered up account. ... 

It matters not if storm or sunshine be 
My earthly lot ; bitter or sweet my cup. 
I only pray, * God fit me for the work, 
God make me holy and my spirit nerve 
For the stern hour of strife.' Let me but know 
There is a watchful eye that plans my path, 
An arm unseen that ever holds me up. 
And I will joy to tread the darksome wilderness. 

And when I come to stretch me for the last 
Beneath the Cocoa's shade, it will be sweet 
That I have toiled for other worlds than this : 
And through the ages of eternal years 
My spirit never shall repent 
That toil, and hardness once were mine below." 

This is the inspiration with which I hasten 
back to India; my India, nay, nay, Christ's 
India, revolted indeed, but a part of which you 
and I, we of the Reformed Church, have sworn 
to bring back to its allegiance to our Lord. 

May this be the aspiration, the inspiration, 

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with which we each spring forward to the work 
to which our Master summons us, while we hear 
before us His inspiriting voice, "Be thou faithful 
unto death, and I will give thee the Crown of 
Life." 



270 



